Perth Glory striker Brendon Santalab out to win A-League double and retire on a high
Former Wanderers cult figure Brendon Santalab is hoping to break Sydney FC hearts for potentially the final time before retiring.
Brendon Santalab is a centurion of sorts.
A week before winning the A-League Premiers’ Plate with Perth Glory, the veteran striker quietly made his 100th Australian national-league appearance as a substitute against the Central Coast Mariners.
You wouldn’t know it without a good dig in the statistical archives, but that’s an all-time record off the bench, and one underlining its owner’s enduring presence over a two-decade career.
Retirement now beckons, though the 36-year-old hopes not for another month until he adds the championship trophy to the cabinet.
And if he doesn’t meet Sydney FC in the grand final, he’ll make do with one last crack at breaking Sky Blues hearts on Thursday night at Jubilee Stadium, where the Glory can potentially push Steve Corica’s men down to third.
“It’s a big moment for me,” Santalab told The Daily Telegraph.
“I love playing against Sydney FC. There’s been some great battles whilst I was at the Wanderers.”
A former Sydney FC man himself, Santalab’s transition to Western Sydney cult figure also morphed him into the quintessential Sky Blues nemesis, a pugnacious on-field fireball belying his impeccable off-field manners.
Then there are the goals, and one in particular at ANZ Stadium.
“When I scored the winner in the 2017 derby when we were under so much pressure after so long,” he said.
“You could feel the mountain on our shoulders, it was just weighing us all down. Not just the players, but the whole club and the fans.
“That goal just released the pressure valve, it was pretty special and a huge relief more than a celebration because we really didn’t achieve much that year.
“The only thing we did was win that game and pretty much stop Sydney FC being the Invincibles.”
As a striker, scoring is patently a Santalab specialty.
Fifty-three reads his total national-league goals tally stretching back to his National Soccer League days as a teenager with Parramatta Power and then Sydney United.
Stints in Europe and Asia followed, but it wasn’t until Tony Popovic and the Wanderers came calling that the boy from Wollongong went double digits.
Well over 30 and in football’s traditional twilight years, Santalab was suddenly scoring his way to two successive club golden boots and the all-time goals record.
The 2015-16 season produced 11 goals including five off the bench to earn him his ‘super-sub’ moniker.
In 2016-17 it was 14 – three as a sub – and the Wanderers Medal for player of the year.
A few teammates and the media started throwing his name up for a Socceroos call-up that never came.
“It’ll never happen unfortunately, but it’s something I’ll forever think ‘what if?’,” he said.
“I was in top form, especially when I won player of the year at the Wanderers, and I thought if there was ever going to be a moment I’d receive the call it was then.”
If that was a purple patch, this season is one of a different kind with the Glory.
And if his unfulfilled Socceroos designs taught Santalab anything, it’s to control the controllable.
That meant reuniting with Popovic, the man with the innate ability to conjure freshly picked fruit from riper bodies.
Other offers came from the A-League and Asia, but Santalab barely entertained them.
“I wasn’t interesting in going back to Asia and getting a quick dollar,” he said.
“I was interested in winning something here in Australia, which is the only thing I really need to tick off.
“Anyone who knows Popa knows his will to win and his work ethic and success rate in his short coaching career is quite exceptional.
"For me it was a no-brainer. I knew something could potentially happen this season in a special way.”
In that sense, his 20th and final year might also be the one that delivers the most.
Until Sunday, an A-League trophy had eluded Santalab, despite playing in two grand finals and winning the 2014 Asian Champions League.
“It’d be very special, especially under Popa,” he said.
“Waiting 20 years to win a grand final and minor premiership and knocking it out all within five or six weeks would be simply incredible.
“Not many players have the opportunity to win trophies at this stage of their career.
“What a way that would be to go out.”
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