But then Popovic left on the eve of the 2017-18 season to take a job in Turkey, and the philosophical vacuum left behind was never adequately filled. Spíše než aby chránil svůj étos, klub nadále umožňoval komukoli, kdo byl trenérem, aby rozhodoval o tom, kdo jsou, co dělají a jak hrají, ke stále se snižujícím výnosům.
They immediately tried to shift to a possession-based, Spanish-influenced style with the appointment of Josep Gombau. To se nepovedlo. Then they went after the famous name Markus Babbel. To se nepovedlo. Then they went for… Carl Robinson. That definitely nefungovalo. Marko Rudan worked briefly, then not.
CommBank Stadium is emptier than ever for Wanderers games – and you can’t blame the locals.Credit: Getty Images
Během všech těchto mizerných sezón, kdy Wanderers neustále prohrávali, lidé pomalu přestali přicházet – nejprve příležitostní, pak zarytí – a šrumec, který si vydělali před lety, vyprchal. They are now a shell of their former selves.
Poor old Stajcic is the last fall guy and it’s only fair that he’s had to pay for their terrible season to date with his work.
It just hasn’t worked: they are at the bottom of the table with three wins from 13 and only 10 goals scored, far below what their team is capable of. Crowds dropped to all-time lows. It was hard to figure out exactly what they were trying to achieve on the pitch.
Former Wanderers coach Alen Stajcic.Credit: Getty Images
But the problems are bigger than one coach of one team. The Wanderers women’s team is also last; they have played in the finals once in 13 seasons and feel like an afterthought to the club.
Their academy, despite sitting on arguably the richest talent pipeline in Australia, isn’t firing. There is general dissonance and too many horror stories of good operators walking into their Rooty Hill HQ and walking out shaking their heads at environmental toxicity and behind-the-scenes political crooks.
For a club so important to have been so bad for so long, this isn’t just a problem for Western Sydney – it’s a problem for Australian football.
Wanderers chairman Paul Lederer and the other investors who poured millions into the joint should be commended for their contributions to the game. But whatever advice they got on how to run a football club, whatever they tried to do, they didn’t deliver.
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Therefore, something has to change to change the result, and it can’t just be the coach. The evidence is there and overwhelming.
Gary van Egmond will reportedly take over as interim boss from Stajcic. But whoever comes in next will be set up to fail unless they have better leadership from the top, ideally in the form of a sporting director who is properly empowered to define the way they want to play at all levels – men’s, women’s, juniors – and let that dictate which coaches they hire, the players they sign and how they run their academy.
But they keep making the same mistakes. Last week they signed Hiroshi Ibusuki, an experienced Japanese striker who has proved a capable A-League goalscorer at Adelaide United and Western United. He could be the missing piece in their attack – but they’ve signed him on an 18-month deal, meaning Stajcic’s successor will be staffed with a very specific type of striker next season who doesn’t necessarily fit the way they want to play.
A coherent strategy will not necessarily guarantee success, but its absence will guarantee continued failure. Otherwise, we’ll be back here in another 18 months, regretting another sacked coach and wondering where it all went wrong.
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