Rival coaches Steve Corica and Ufuk Talay driven by ambition

Through nearly 30 years of friendship, Steve Corica and Ufuk Talay have been driven by ambition.

Sydney FC’s Milos Ninkovic and Chris Zuvela compete at a training session at Macquarie University on Thursday. Picture: Getty Images

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.

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“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 said ahead of his side’s Friday match with Talay’s Wellington Phoenix in the first A-League game after a four-month shutdown.

“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 ladder in his first year in charge — and 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.

“There were no swear words but I guess you could say I wasn’t happy. I was disappointed — mainly because he’s only stayed for one year,” Corica said.

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 inaugural A-League 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.

Talay said: “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.

“It was simple because I have a relationship with Steve and I’m always up front and honest, and I told him from day one what my thoughts were.”

Proving there were no hard feelings, the pair caught up over a beer on Sydney’s last trip across the Tasman — when their clubs split the points in December.

A victory over Wellington would leave the Sky Blues requiring only one point from their final five games to secure the Premier’s Plate as minor premiers.

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