The Match: Sydney v Western Sydney Wanderers

Sydney turn to the bench to take down the Wanderers

No football supporter likes to see their team beaten by their local rivals. Spare a thought, then, for the fans of Western Sydney Wanderers. They started Australia’s A-League season with a loss to Sydney FC and faced them again in game number five.

The second Sydney derby of the season was a different match with a similar outcome, taking the Sky Blues’ winning streak against the Wanderers to four courtesy of a 4-2 victory at the city’s Allianz Stadium.

Football matches can turn on substitutions and reshuffles within the 90 minutes and the biggest influence on this derby was a player who spent the first 45 on the bench waiting his turn.

At 27, Anas Ouahim will be eager to find his place in football once and for all. He was born and raised in Germany, where a promising rise through the ranks of 1. FC Köln culminated in a single league appearance for the first team before he was sold to VfL Osnabrück in 2018. 

Spells with Sandhausen and Kaiserslautern followed before he finally started to play consistently for Heracles in the Dutch Eerste Divisie. Ouahim joined Sydney in July and scored twice on his debut in the AFC Champions League Two, which does exactly what it says on the tin.

Without Ouahim’s half-time introduction, there’s no telling how the derby might have turned out. His impact was forceful and defining.

The mastermind of Sydney’s mid-match rejig was head coach Ufuk Talay. The 48-year-old spent much of his playing career in Türkiye before being signed to the inaugural Sydney FC squad in 2005 and winning the A-League title.

In 2023, Talay returned to Sydney after a very respectable tenure in charge of Wellington Phoenix. His opposite number in the Wanderers dugout is a member of Sydney FC’s Hall of Fame.

Alen Stajcic played his entire career in New South Wales but never in the A-League. His coaching credentials have been sharpened by success in the women’s game, starting in local football and later with the Sky Blues between 2008 and 2014 and the Matildas – Australia’s women’s national team – from 2014 to 2019.

After a spell in charge of Central Coast Mariners in the Men’s A-League, Stajcic coached the women’s national team of the Philippines. Already highly respected in women’s football and throughout Australian football more generally, he returned to the men’s game and was appointed by Perth Glory in 2023 and the Wanderers in 2024.

The A-League does a fabulous line in derby matches. Something about the way its flaws and ferocity combine makes it especially able to deliver the elements that ignite a local slobberknocker.

Starting in midfield and radiating outwards, the physical manifestations of enmity made this match feel like a derby as well as sound like one. It had an urgency and intensity absent from the other games in the A-League’s bizarre UNITE Round.

Sydney’s Douglas Costa was in the thick of it. The 34-year-old Brazilian was back from injury and was the unnecessary spark for a flashpoint that looked destined to fizzle out before his involvement.

After a little pushing and a lot of histrionics, Costa and Wanderers striker Brandon Borelli were booked. Costa was now a marked man. Gabriel Cléùr took him out within seconds of the restart.

The Sky Blues already had a 1-0 lead by then and Costa was the grease for those gears too. Sydney’s quick passing was irresistible and won them control of the game. Their catalyst was the partnership between Costa and Joe Lolley in possession. The two play beautifully together, Costa drifting right to link up with a team-mate on his wavelength.

Like Costa, Lolley gave Sydney a lift on his return from injury. Now 32, the former Huddersfield Town and Nottingham Forest winger raced up the English football pyramid from non-league Littleton before moving down under in 2022.

He’s been a fantastic addition for the Sky Blues and opened the scoring against their rivals at the Allianz Stadium.

Patryk Klimala’s shot was blocked and the ball span right to Lolley’s feet. He ruthlessly lifted it with power past Wanderers goalkeeper Lawrence Thomas to score his 20th A-League goal.

But what Stajcic and the Wanderers have is threat on the break. A front two of Borello and Zach Sapsford were joined by Nicolas Milanovic, an always available out-ball high on the right and particularly dangerous in transition.

They served notice four minutes before half time. Dylan Scicluna combined with Sapsford at speed and only a spectacular piece of defending from Lolley snuffed out Sapsford’s perfect ball in from the right. He injured goalkeeper Andrew Redmayne in the subsequent collision, leading to a long delay and the six minutes of injury time in which Western Sydney scored their equaliser.

Sydney took the sting out of those extra minutes until inexplicably leaving the back door wide open for a lightning two-on-one that was impossible to defend. Milanovic tore clear on the right. Sapsford side-footed the ball beyond Redmayne from his pass.

The leveller set up a blockbuster second half but it was Ouahim and the Sky Blues who landed the punches.

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On in place of the cautioned Costa, Ouahim struck the first blow immediately.

His gorgeous in-swinging free kick curled in behind and was attacked and headed in by Jordan Courtney-Perkins to restore Sydney’s lead very early in the second half and neither Ouahim nor his team looked back.

In the ninth minute of a half dominated up to that point by Sydney it was 3-1 and Ouahim had a goal to his name. Skipper Rhyan Grant nicked the ball away from Anthony Pantazopoulos on the blind side and was clipped by the Wanderers left back. Ouahim fired to Thomas’ right to score his first league goal of the season.

Western Sydney had to go for broke and Stajcic obliged with a quadruple substitution. Marcus Antonsson, Aydan Hammond and Jack Clisby were joined by Juan Mata.

Ouahim remained influential in a thrilling game as the Sky Blues created and wasted a handful of presentable opportunities, but Mata inevitably had his say and Sydney started to find themselves in a state of modest retreat.

Antonsson had a shot on the turn deflected away from goal in the 72nd minute but scored to make it 3-2 in the 78th, stooping to head home a badly defended Mata corner from the left. 

Sydney had been willing to commit to lots of late tackles and big blocks – whatever it took – but went to sleep from a dead ball.

If the comeback seemed possible, Ouahim was not having a bit of it. His through-ball for Klimala was expertly delivered but left the Polish striker with work to do. He held off a couple of Western Sydney players and got a fortunate ricochet in a challenge with Clisby before crashing in the clincher.

That was that. The Wanderers wilted, their revitalisation from the bench stymied by Sydney’s preemptive strike from theirs.

There was time for a fifth Sky Blues goal and it would have been a trio of substitutes who took the credit had it been allowed to stand. Ouahim was involved with a superb touch to divert the ball to Corey Hollman, who flicked on for Jaiden Kucharski. 

He scored a last-minute winner against Brisbane Roar in the first match of November after coming on as a late replacement for Courtney-Perkins. On this occasion he was denied by a VAR check which identified a foul on Clisby by Tiago Quintal.

There was no clear and obvious error and the on-field decision should have stood but these are the times in which we live. 4-2 would have to suffice. Talay had no cause for complaint.

It was in the end a comprehensive win, but the head coach needed to revisit his plan to make it happen. Ouahim repaid him with plenty of end product and the seamlessness of Sydney’s adaptation to keep the squeeze on the Wanderers after the break was impressive.

A fourth consecutive win over their rivals took the Sky Blues to 18 wins in 38 regular season derby fixtures. They’ve won three of their first five 2024 matches. The Wanderers have won just one of theirs, losing three and drawing the other despite averaging more than two goals a game.

Western Sydney are a potent prospect on the break but if Stajcic is looking for changes he’ll need to start by finding a way to make sure that two or three goals per match is enough to win more often than not. That’s easier said than done.