Steve Corica: Sydney FC to thrive on crowded schedule

Sydney FC coach Steve Corica is confident the A-League leaders can maintain their focus in another busy fortnight.

Sydney FC’s Rhyan Grant, left, congratulates goalscorer Milos Ninkovic on Saturday night. Picture: Getty Images

After Sydney FC manoeuvred their way through a difficult schedule, coach Steve Corica is confident the A-League leaders can maintain their focus in another busy fortnight to come.

Between their A-League and Asian Champions League campaigns, the Sky Blues played three games in eight days and five in 18, culminating in Saturday night’s 4-1 win over Melbourne Victory.

Sydney will have a week’s break before facing fellow top-four sides Perth next Saturday and Wellington in a rescheduled game the following Wednesday — then round out their week with a Saturday clash with Western Sydney.

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“(We handle the situation) the same way we tried to do it this week — just freshening up some bodies and keeping them fresh as much as we can,” Corica said.

“We’ve got Perth next week, we’ve got Wellington midweek and then we’ve got Wanderers, so what a great three games to look forward to.”

Sydney will finish the round at least 10 points clear of Melbourne City, Perth and Wellington, but Corica shrugged off suggestions of his team losing concentration.

“There’s a lot of games to go, we still have a lot of Champions League games as well. It won’t be that hard to keep them focused,” Corica said. “This is a team that wants to keep winning … they work very hard at training.

“We have fun along the way but we set goals out at the start of the year. It’s not just winning trophies — there’s other things they’ve set and they want to achieve that, so they’re on track to do that.”

Sydney are set for a personnel boost, too, with Michael Zullo, Chris Zuvela and Luke Ivanovic to return to training this week.

The Sky Blues came from behind to beat Victory, after Marco Rojas opened scoring for the Melbourne side with a sublime effort in the fifth minute before Milos Ninkovic responded in the 43rd.

Second-half goals to Anthony Caceres, Adam Le Fondre and Kosta Barbarouses delivered the win, while Victory’s Tim Hoogland received a late red card.

“With the (Rojas) goal, we were a little bit sloppy … it took us a little while to get going; we’ve had a busy week,” Corica said.

“But definitely dominated the game; definitely was outstanding character also to come back — (I’m) very pleased for the boys.”

Sydney struck a hammer blow to their opponent’s slim finals chances, with Victory seven points off the pace. Victory boss Carlos Salvachua rued his team’s second-half defensive lapses.

“I think that the problem is that we didn’t respect the structure in the second half — it’s totally different, the defensive structure, and when you are playing like a team like in the first half, the team can support you,” he said.

“But if you want to play individually, it just depends on your quality and, in the second half, we saw a big difference between the quality.

“We created the same number of chances in the first and second half but we didn’t score and we opened the game for them.”

AAP