A-League: Sydney FC v Wellington Phoenix’s grand final preview, Steve Corica and Ufuk Talay
Sydney FC’s 3-1 win over Wellington served as a potential grand final preview - but the controversy that surrounded it wouldn’t have rattled either coach. They’ve already been through plenty in 30 years of friendship.
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WHEN a 16-year-old Ufuk Talay rocked up at training for Marconi-Fairfield and wasted no time in trying to nutmeg the NSL heavyweight’s galaxy of stars, eyebrows were raised.
It was during the club’s golden era, and the response from hardened veterans was swift. The promising midfielder was put in his place.
“When you’re nutmegging blokes as a kid at training, you’re going to get kicked a bit,” Sydney FC coach, and then-Marconi teammate, Steve Corica tells News Corp.
“I was a couple of years older, but what I remember about him from then is he was always confident, maybe even cocky.”
That brash confidence remains.
It’s part of the reason Talay’s Phoenix have risen to third on the A-League ladder in his first year in charge – and, despite Friday’s controversial 3-1 defeat to the Sky Blues, Wellington remain the biggest roadblock to Sydney FC claiming becoming back-to-back champions.
And it almost certainly explains why, in his first season as Corica’s assistant at Sydney FC, he walked into the office of his good friend and told him it would also be his last.
He’d been offered the Wellington job vacated by their former Sydney teammate Mark Rudan, and he was going to take it. Simple as that.
“I remember the conversation when he came in to tell me about it… There were no swear words but I guess you could say I wasn’t happy. I was definitely disappointed – mainly because he’s only stayed for one year,” Corica said.
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Forget the nearly 30 years of friendship first forged at Marconi Oval and revived more than a decade later with a Sydney FC premiership triumph in the A-League’s inaugural season, this was a decision born out of the trait that once drew two of Australia’s most impressive young coaches together: ambition.
It had driven them as teens looking at overseas leagues for opportunities – taking Corica to the UK with Leicester City and Wolverhampton, and Talay all over Turkey – and the Sky Blues boss recognised nothing had changed.
“I believe when you work with good people you don’t want to lose them, but also he understood the opportunity that I had to stand on my own two feet,” Talay explains.
“It wasn’t one of those ones where at the end of the day he’s going to be happy with my decision, but he’s also understanding about what I want to do and my coaching career and where I want to go too.
“It was simple because I have a relationship with Steve and I’m always upfront and honest, and I told him from day one what my thoughts were.
“Once I told him, was he happy? No. But at the end of the day it’s an opportunity for me to do what I want to do.”
Proving there were no hard feelings about the move, the pair caught up over a beer on Sydney’s last trip across the Tasman – when their clubs split the points in December.
If not for the strict COVID-19 protocols in place for the remainder of the revitalised A-League season, they’d have done so again after Friday’s fixture between the competition’s two most impressive outfits - and there’s every chance their next opportunity to do it will be after this year’s grand final.