Precise passing. Vision. Clever movement off the ball. Accurate crosses. Lethal finishing.

That was them, not us.

Us? That was the most painful viewing since standing all depressed in the Cove somewhere circa early ’09 with the crowd chanting “Kossie Out!”. Alcohol is a depressant, so it’s lucky I watched the game sober.

Wow.

Just typed “woe” by mistake and realised I was closer to the mark.

Wow. How could we have given away so many passes? Made runs to the wrong spot time and again? Generally, put in such an awful performance?

No one goes out on the field to play badly. Even the lazy players. It isn’t fair to yell abuse at your own, no matter how tempting it may seem at the time. The Sydney FC boys worked their muddy socks off. So what can we put this abysmal performance down to? Let’s get back to that…

Come April we were having a dog of an off-season. Tinkler seemingly had Uncle Frank and the FFA over a barrel. Palmer was rapid-firing bullets at football. Perth was on the breadline while the Mariners plunged deep below it. In fact, only Sydney FC looked truly solid and stable, off the park at least, with solid structure and governance and an owner who actually gets the game.

And then – it all turned around in the blink of an eye, almost miraculously. The sun peered through the clouds. West Sydney Wanderers were alive. Tinkler was made to see perspective and changed his tune. Sage settled his differences.

And after that things just got stupid - in a good way. Following the shock departure of Nicky Carle (more on that later), we suddenly got global megastar Del Piero. Chests swelled with pride, we were all walking around with a spring in our step. HESKEY! ONO! A TV DEAL WITH ITALY! Memberships were flying out the door all over the country.

Since 2005 I don’t remember a better run up to the new season. Sydney FC have been the talk of the town for weeks, my non-football mates wanting to know all about Del Piero, and my Euro-snob mates buying Sydney memberships. It was like being in a parallel universe, and I was loving it.

So I’d like to thank my team for bringing me back down to Earth, and to the reality of what I witnessed on a rainy Saturday afternoon. And the stark reality is that this was a cellar-dweller performance. You could see exactly what the boys were trying to do, but the execution was awful and we paid the price.

I know we could not have got Del Piero without loaning out Carle, but we lacked a creative central midfielder. Antonis tried hard and showed quality but needed support. We needed someone to put their foot on the ball in the middle of the park and pass it around. Instead and infuriatingly we lost possession time and again, and were duly punished.

Briefly in the second half we looked better, but just couldn’t get going. Was it the lack of pre-season matches? Maybe. It would make sense - players were running into wrong spaces for each other, passers kept taking the wrong option or were totally off-radar, and no one was on Del Piero’s wavelength.

A well drilled Wellington side kept it simple and didn’t even resort to kicking us this time. They made the most of what we gave them, and have raised well-drilled, effective football to an art form. Kudos to them, to Ricki Herbert, and to the exciting Louis Fenton on debut, the boy has talent. I guess he’ll be getting a call from Victory sometime soon.

So to the man all will be coming to see next Saturday afternoon at Allianz. Del Piero was wonderful, his touches sublime, his creative genius there for all to see, if still a touch short of a gallop. And he looked mighty frustrated with his teammates, a mental step ahead, shades of Juninho from what seems like a lifetime ago. Let’s hope that, unlike Juninho, he stays injury free and doesn’t cop a weekly ritual kicking.

The major positive to take out of the game is simple – we could not have played much worse. Like a substance abuser who reaches his nadir and seeks out help, maybe we’ve hit rock bottom early. The boys will be hurting and will look to come back to from this quickly. The only way is up. And Il Pinturicchio is magnificent.

Back to the foetal position.