Though the faces across from him will be very familiar when he takes the field in the A-League Grand Final, Josh Brillante says there will be no sense of sentiment weighing him down as his Melbourne City take on Sydney FC.
Brillante, 27, has played in two A-League grand finals since he returned to the competition following a stint with Italian giants Fiorentina – and won both of them.
However the victories came when he was wearing a Sydney FC shirt – the very same foes that he will be seeking to vanquish come Sunday evening.
The midfielder made 74 A-League appearances for the Sky Blues across three seasons with the club, winning the 16/17 and 18/19 championships, 16/17 and 17/18 Premiership and the 2017 FFA Cup.
Seeking a new challenge, he made the switch to Melbourne during the most recent offseason - Luke Brattan making the opposite journey after a brief detour in Turkey - and has since anchored City’s midfield across 27 appearances during the 19/20 season, 26 of them starts.
But when referee Chris Beath blows his whistle to signal an opening of hostilities in Sunday’s decider, Brillante says his performance won’t be weighed down by any sense of sentiment.
“I think a lot of people are going to jump on that, my old club and playing them in the Grand Final," he said today. “But I don’t see it that way.
“I won a lot of trophies there, so it’s a great opportunity for an exciting challenge. I know Sydney has been in finals and won it, so it makes it all the better that if we get the win.”
Beyond providing a ‘new club vs old club’ narrative, though, Brillante’s previous experience with Sydney also sets him apart from his teammates in another manner; he is the only member of Erick Mombaerts’ likely starting XI to have previously played in, let alone won, an A-League grand final.
This sits in stark contrast to the Harboursiders, who will feature a bevy of players battle-tested in the crucible that is a grand final.
Set to captain City due to the absence of Scott Jamieson, who returned to Melbourne to be with his partner for the birth of the couple’s first child, it’s an experience that Brillante has sought to share with his teammates to prepare them for the occasion.
“I’ve already mentioned a few things about that,” he said. “Trying to tell them to enjoy the experience and take it on.
“A lot of people don’t get that many opportunities to be in these sorts of game. They’re not the same as these league matches where 90 minutes is done and you’ve got next week.
“This is it; this is the big game, and this is what you play for all year. These are the games where you make those memories.”
As a former key cog within it, Brillante is also well aware of the ins and outs of Sydney’s system, but that doesn’t exactly make him a rare figure in A-League circles.
Developed under Graham Arnold and continued under Steve Corica, the Harboursiders’ Arnieball approach is a widely known feature of their game these days but the league, to now, has been unable to consistently figure out a way to break the machine-like efficiency the Sky Blues go about their game.
Ostensibly, it’s simultaneously Sydney’s biggest strength and greatest weakness heading into Sunday, and Brillante believes his side has what it takes to break through.
“I don’t think they’ve been secretive about the way they’ve played,” he said. “They’ve played the same style year in and year out.
“It comes down to executing on the game day.
“If you’re up for the battle and physicality, you want to get in their faces you can match it with them and beat them like we did last game [City defeated Sydney 2-0 in their first game post-pandemic break].
“We’ve come a long way with the new playing style this year and I think we’ve developed really well.
“[Miloš Ninković is] quite a smooth player, so we’ll be planning on getting in his face, not let him get his confidence up and run the show. That will be a big part of us not letting him do his thing.”
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