sidelined

With Branko Culina now officially installed as coach, Sydney FC face off against their third-round banana skin, Persik Kediri, the dark horses of Group E, this time on home soil.

At the start of this competition, most pundits picked Urawa Red Diamonds and Shanghai Shenhua as Sydney’s main rivals for top spot, with Persik Kediri an afterthought. Yet, three matches in Shanghai are now languishing at the bottom without a point to their names while Persik sit just one point behind Urawa, group leaders with 7 pts from two wins and a draw.

So, the question arises: are Persik a force to be reckoned with, or a home-climate bully, relying on monsoonal deluges and will-sapping heat to slip past their beleagured opponents? Wednesday’s match will tell for sure, but at this point I’d have to say the latter.

While they boast a few dangerous players, particularly Uguraguayan winger Fernandez and nippy midfielders like Erol Iba and Budi Sukarsono, the rest of their squad was distinctly unimpressive — such was upront striker Gonzales’s (a Uraguayan import) sluggishness that he made Romario in his tenure as Adelaide striker look like a paragon of speed and agility by comparison. Likewise, in the first half their defense was regularly enfiladed by Sydney’s mids as Ufuk Talay and Steve Corica proved themselves a class above, creating several chances for Brosque and Zdrillic before the heat set in (around the 40 minute mark). At Parramatta stadium with the Cove behind them, and the return of U-23s captain Mark Milligan, right midfielder Robby Middleby and Terry McFlynn at defensive-mid they should do substantially better.

It won’t be all plain sailing however, as Ruben Zadkovich and David Carney’s suspensions for fits of petulance in Solo have deprived Branko of two good attacking options, while poor off-season recruiting has left a thin squad and an unstable back four without genuine fullbacks — Culina will have to chose between playing winger Robbie Middleby out of position at rightback like so:

Middleby——Rudan—-Fyfe——- Topor-Stanley

or risk placing 17 year old defender Nikolas Tsattalios at leftback in order to better use Iain Fyfe, Middleby and Topor-Stanley at rightback, rightwing and centreback:

Fyfe———Rudan—-Topor-Stanley—–Tsattalios

Not a particularly wonderful choice given Fernandez and Sukarsono’s pace, but one that needn’t been regretted so long as FC’s midfield keep up the splendid early attacks that have seen them net two goals within the first 30′ twice already in this campaign and came damn close in Solo two weeks back.

UPDATE: Mark Rudan appears to be under an injury cloud, so there’s an outside chance Jacob Timpano could step into centreback after missing most of Season 2 with a shocking injury run. And SBS said something about Milligan coming in at left-midfield — a wierd pick if true, given his solid defensive-mid credentials.