A record home and way regular season crowd of more that 60,000 is expected at Allianz Stadium for the opening round A-League season clash between local bitter rivals Western Sydney Wanders and Sydney FC.

The Sydney FC coach said Sydney football fans can make a statement to the winter sports by attending the derby in huge numbers to signal the strength of the round ball game in Australia.

“A few weeks ago GWS played the Sydney Swans in the Semi-Final of the AFL and got 62,000,” he said to FourFourTwo. “It would be a wonderful coup for Australian football if in round one if we could get more than that. That should be the goal of all the fans - real football fans to come out and make sure we get more than what the AFL got and show them that we are beating on their door.”

According to Sydney FC CEO Tony Pignata, reports that Sydney FC fans weren’t travelling to Allianz stadium in big numbers were not accurate.

“No,” he said to FourFourTwo. “There is going to be 60,000 plus there and it is an away game for us and we’ll still have a good mixture of fans there as well. It rivals any game in the world, any derby in the world and it’s brought a lot of passion and a lot of notoriety to the A-League.”

Western Wanderers Chief executive John Tsatsimas says hosting an A-League game with more than 60,000 spectators would be a positive sign of the game’s growth.

“It’s fantastic,” he told FourFourTwo. “It’s reflective of where the code has travelled and where it sits in the sporting landscape of Australia let alone Sydney.

“We’re very excited about what is about to unfold and what players are representing us in the red and black and hopefully it will come to fruition on the weekend.”

Head of A-League Greg O’Rourke said scheduling the Sydney and Melbourne derbies at the beginning of the season was a strategy designed to start the season off with a bang.

“We want to create a lot of noise and a lot of interest and get to the situation where big stands are full,” he said to FourFourTwo.

“You can imagine ANZ Stadium with 60-65000 spectators for a round one home and away game and with Etihad in Melbourne potentially sold out.

“What that does is generate enough interest for people who didn’t get to the game and weren’t able to see it to actually go what was all that about? Maybe I’ll get a ticket maybe I’ll attend a next one.

“In Sydney there will be three derbies between those two teams this year we think that if we spark enough interest in the first derby then other people will want to go the second derby and the third derby.

“We’d love nothing more than putting the sold out sign up.”