Nick Theodorakopoulos

Nick Theodorakopoulos’s exit was less of a surprise than the turnaround and success of the man who replaced him, Gary van Egmond.

Nick T stepped in for English coach Richard Money who had a middling one season stint with the Jets, taking them to a spot in the finals in the debut year of the A-League and earning the man dubbed Dickie Dosh a return to the UK as boss of Walsall.

Nick T, however, did not have such a good record. As newly-installed Jets coach, he lost all his Pre-Season Cup games and a didn’t win a single one of his opening seven A-League games, despite having had a full off-season with the squad.

After the last loss, former Jets owner Con Constantine pulled the trigger and fired him.

Assistant coach van Egmond took over as caretaker – and immediately went on a winning streak with the very same squad which had failed so dismally at the start of the season.

After looking like dead certs for the wooden spoon, van Egmond’s record for the next 14 games was eight wins, three draws and just three losses, earning a spot in the finals and setting the foundation for the Jets’ Championship-winning season the following year.

Meanwhile Nick T went on to have one season as coach at Sydney Olympic in 2009 before backing out of the coaching game for good.

 

IAN CROOK

Making the step up from being an assistant coach to head coach at the same club is a near impossible task, and the landscape of the A-League and beyond is littered with the career wreckage of those who have tried.

But for Ian Crook it was even harder than usual.

Not only did he have to replace Sydney’s successful and popular Czech manager Vitezslav Lavicka, the club had recruited a genuine world-class superstar for him to coach.

The addition of Alessandro Del Piero to the Sky Blues’ roster brought the eyes of the world on Sydney FC and their inexperienced coach. It was an impossibly heavy burden for the former Norwich City nice guy to shoulder.

A thumping 7-2 loss to Central Coast Mariners sent alarm bells ringing and a 3-2 defeat at home to Melbourne Victory proved the final straw just six rounds into the 2012/13 season.

Crooky put up his hands and admitted he wasn’t ready for the role and made way for someone more experienced to take charge of Sydney and the circus surrounding Del Piero.

Frank Farina was eventually given the job, but he too struggled to gel the skills and demands of ADP with the rest of the squad – and the potential the star signing offered went largely unrealised as a result, with Sydney missing out on the finals, despite ADP’s 14 goal haul.