Sydney FC boss predicts A-League showdown at Allianz Stadium to attract fresh audience following Socceroos’ World Cup run
The A-League returns this week and there are high hopes of a bumper crowd at Allianz Stadium following the interest generated by Australia’s bold World Cup showing.
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Sydney FC boss Adam Santo is counting on a flow-on effect from the Socceroos’ memorable World Cup campaign to help lure a big crowd to Saturday night’s Allianz Stadium showdown between the Sky Blues and Melbourne City.
More than 34,000 fans attended the Sydney derby at the same venue last month before the A-League went into recess for Australia’s World Cup journey in Qatar.
With the competition resuming this week, Sky Blues chief executive officer Santo said it was the perfect time attract a fresh wave of A-League supporters following the excitement generated by the Socceroos’ achievement of reaching the knockout stages of the World Cup.
“With the spotlight being on the game at the moment, there’s no better time for fans who haven’t experienced A-League to get out to the match between the two most dominant clubs in the game in the past six years,” Santo said.
“We need to convert the people that came out to all the (World Cup) live sites.
“There’s enough people who walked away on Sunday morning (after the Socceroos’ 2-1 loss to Argentina) saying ‘gee, that was pretty good’ and if they want another dose of ‘gee, that was pretty good; then come to the game on Saturday night.
“Now’s the time to give the A-League a go. It’s going to be an entertaining game.
“The potential’s there to get close to what we got at the derby.”
The Sky Blues are hopeful of a better ending to proceedings on Saturday night after losing the derby 1-0 to the Wanderers.
It was Sydney’s second successive A-League defeat and they are desperate to redeem themselves this weekend against the top-of-the-table Melbourne club in a match set to feature four membes of Australia’s World Cup squad – Mathew Leckie, Jamie Maclaren, Marco Tilio and Andrew Redmayne.
“It’s going to be a tough game against City. They’re clearly the benchmark,” Santo said.
“It’s going to be important for us to get three points and move back towards the top of the ladder, or City will run away with the Premier’s Plate.”
Santo said it was vital the Sky Blues – who have won the A-League title five times – again became contenders after failing to play finals football last season.
“Sydney FC expects to be challenging for silverware every season. To have a season where we didn’t perform to our expectation is disappointing. It’s important we don’t have a repeat of that,” he said
“It’s a good test this Saturday night, because that’s the level we need to get back to, the level that City are currently showing in the league.”
Santo said Sydney’s shock 2-1 win over Scottish champions Celtic during the A-League break had boosted confidence in the Sky Blues camp.
“It reaffirmed to us that we do have the potential to take on the best clubs and beat them if we get it right on the night,” he said.
“If we hadn’t have had that Celtic game, it would have been a bit flat during the break, but we’re buzzing.”
Originally published as Sydney FC boss predicts A-League showdown at Allianz Stadium to attract fresh audience following Socceroos’ World Cup run
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