Keep calm and carry on...

This is a blog that I have being trying not to write.  

Because however I cut it, writing about Sydney FC this year a fraught task.  We are the Premiers.  We are the Champions.  Expectations are huge, and we are everyone's favourite target, even more than usual.  So whatever I write here, I am in a no-win position.  Any criticism of the club will nearly always be out of context, because objectively things are going very well. Point out exactly how well and I'm going to sound hubristic and triumphant...

... which really, I am not.

Because it is not lost on me that we won the Premiership in the last game of the season.  It's certainly not lost on me that we won the Championship thanks to Clank's post hitting penalty.  This is a tight league and no team stands still, I tell myself.  The only sure bet is that this year will be even tighter.

So against that background, I don't want to write about the fantastic festival of football.  The game where we experimented against AEK, conceded a heap, but nevertheless put three past easily the best team in the festival. The game where we made a Champions League side, renown across the world as a tough and tactical side look decidedly ordinary and lucky to get a draw in torrential conditions that suited them perfectly.  The game where we took it to premiership perennials Blackburn Rovers, frequently passing the ball out of defense and right through the middle of a Sam Allardyce team that specialises in interrupting exactly that type of game, and where two kids, Ryall and Golec stood taller than any of the vaunted Rovers defenders, playing with a control and focus that would have not been out of place amongst the opposition.  

I don't want to talk about the luxurious depth of Sydney FC.  That quality players like Bridge, Musilaik and Ryall will find themselves struggling to make the team on occasions, while Danning, Moriyasu, Grant and Golec press their claims.  

I don't want to talk about the improvements in crucial areas like pace.  That this Sydney team is noticeably faster than last year, right across the park.  That there is a crispness to the passing that is mouthwatering.  Or that, as good as the players we lost were, their replacements look pretty decent too.  I don't want to talk about the possibility that we have the most creative player in the league wearing our number ten or that Hayden Foxe might be even better than Simon Colosimo, or that Jamo finally provides us with the decent and consistent outlet on the wing we missed last year, decentralising our game by just the right amount. 

Because, were I to write about these things, I'd raise expectations that are already probably too high.  I'd be jumping with excitement when I turned up to the game tomorrow night.  I'd be expectant, rather than hopeful.  Hyped, jittery and all too keen for a season where teams spanning half the earth -  from Wellington to Seoul, and then west to borders of Europe will test themselves against us in the search for silverware.  

So I'm just going to play it cool, and low key.  No expectations beyond the next game.

Which is Melbourne Victory and only one result will do...