The Sydney FC Gazette
Market13 Sep 2027
Ben Garuccio hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sydney FC can pretend not to have heard.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Takahiro Sekine wants to go home
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Sydney FC can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Takahiro Sekine in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sydney FC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Sep 2027
The step up is real for Junior Gqabashe
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Market13 Sep 2027
Alex Gersbach is a Sydney FC player again
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Alexandar Popovic signs a new deal
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Alexandar Popovic commits to Sydney FC for another 3 years.
Market13 Sep 2027
Sydney FC promote Kye Ward from within
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Kye Ward has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market13 Sep 2027
Cooper Bailey steps up from the Sydney FC academy
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Cooper Bailey has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The dugout13 Sep 2027
When it matters, Apostolos Stamatelopoulos plays
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
In brief
- The dugout Tiago Quintal gets it from the manager
- The dugout The manager plants his flag on Lachlan Middleton