Glory Head Coach David Zdrilic has played down the significance of facing his former club Sydney FC for the first time at Allianz Stadium on Wednesday (kick-off at 4pm WST, watch on Paramount +).
Watch his full pre-match media conference HERE
Zdrilic won the A-League Championship as a foundation player for the Sky Blues before working in the club’s academy and then returning in 2023 as assistant to then-ALM Head Coach Steve Corica.
But he insisted that those connections have provided no extra motivation for him in the build-up to the Round 12 clash.
“I spent a lot of my A-League time at Sydney FC both as a player and as a coach in different forms,” he said.
“So it’s a club that I know well.
“But other than that, it’s just business as usual.
“We need to get points and produce a good performance to back up the good performance from the weekend and hopefully get a better result for us.
“I’m fully focused on what we’re doing here and obviously the challenge here is big.
“I think both of us [clubs] are coming to the game under different types of pressure.
“We’re trying to rebuild and we’re trying to get results as we’re doing that and they’re obviously a big club that’s used to winning and they expect to be winning every game.
“But other than that, it’s just another game in which we need to move forward.”
The Head Coach went on to discuss the prospect of going head-to-head with Ufuk Talay whom he also worked with during his time in the Harbour City.
“The type of football that we’re playing here now is not as aggressive as the kind of football we were playing [during my time] with Sydney and he [Talay] is not playing that way at the moment either
“But generally, they’ve got very good technical players, we know that and they’re very good on the ball.
“He’s improved his squad.
“A lot of the foreigners that have come in are very, very high quality, so they’re able to keep the ball even more.
“That’s the style of football that they’re playing at the moment… but they’re flexible in the way they play.
“There might be a surprise there; we’ll just have to wait and see.
“I’m expecting both of us [teams] to come in very motivated and trying to get that win.”
The midweek showdown at Allianz Stadium is the first of three games in just six days for Glory, but Zdrilic backed his charges to cope with the demands of the busy schedule.
“The result we had against Western United was not what we wanted, but the performance was much, much better and we need to build on that,” he said.
“For us, we want to be playing games and sometimes in these situations, playing games replaces the training.
“So we’re just focusing on that.
“We’re already relying a lot on the young ones and we want to try and get them in at the right time and use them at the right time, like Jaylan Pearman, for example.
“But in terms of rotating, it’ll depend on their bodies.
“For this Sydney game, I think we’re ok.
“But for the next two games after that, we’ll have to see how we’re looking when we return from Sydney.”
In terms of early team news, Zdrilic confirmed that Nikola Mileusnic is poised to return to the selection mix for the first time since injuring his hamstring against Melbourne City in Round 4, leaving David Williams (ACL) as the only confirmed absentee.
Sydney FC currently sit four points outside the top six having struggled for consistency over the course of their opening ten games.
Two of their four wins to date have come over derby rivals Western Sydney Wanderers and Talay’s men also accounted for Brisbane Roar and Melbourne Victory.
Scoring goals has not been an issue, with English import Joe Lolley bagging five and Polish forward Patryk Klimala claiming four, but the Sky Blues have kept just one clean sheet.
The hosts are poised to be at close to full strength, with the notable exception of Brazilian marquee man Douglas Costa who has been ruled out by a hamstring injury.
Glory have won four of their 16 previous meetings with Sydney FC at Allianz Stadium, with the most recent of those victories coming in 2016.
Match Details
Isuzu UTE A-League Round 12
Sydney FC v Perth Glory
Allianz Stadium
Wednesday 8 January 2025
Kick-off: 4pm WST
Brought to you in association with
#ONEGlory
