On Saturday evening, Sydney FC will travel to Hindmarsh Stadium to face Adelaide United. It will mark the first matchday in their 19-year existence that Steve Corica will not be associated with the Sky Blues.
Corica was axed as coach of the five-time A-League Men champions on Tuesday morning, just days after his side slumped to their third-straight loss and sealed their worst-ever start to a campaign. It ended the era of a man who had been branded as "Mr. Sydney" by the club itself and who was an inaugural member of its Hall of Fame.
Given that his position had felt like it was under threat for years, and that segments of the fanbase had been calling for his ouster even longer, that his side's abject start to the season provided the final cracks in the thin ice on which he resided didn't come as a complete shock.
If there was any surprise to be had, it was that it came now, just three weeks into the season and a month on from lifting the Australia Cup and securing a place in continental football. If it was going to happen this way, the undoubted best time to part ways would have been during the last offseason, before you've recruited a squad for Corica and denied whoever comes in to replace him a preseason with their new squad. And if it was going to go down during the season, a winless run culminating in defeat in the round five Sydney Derby felt like the most likely tipping point.
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However, that his final defeat came against Melbourne City, a 2-0 loss last Friday evening, was perhaps appropriate in a way, given that that contest was the first in which the three-time defending A-League Men premiers were playing under the command of Aurelio Vidmar following the sacking of Rado Vidošić just two weeks into the season. No club wants to be the first to move on their coach if they can help it, and City's ruthless move provided something of a cover for anyone else thinking of doing similar -- someone, clearly, like Sydney.
Additionally, City's decision to axe Vidošić so quickly was one undertaken in the belief that a veteran and well-credentialled squad had what it takes to compete for silverware but that this could only take place with a different voice in the dugout. Thus, decision-makers moved quickly, before the side found itself in too great a hole to climb out of and to provide plenty of time for Vidmar to come in and right the ship. A week on, it's hard to imagine those same considerations weren't front and centre in the ultimate decision to move on from Corica, as well.
Both City and Sydney, by the age profile of their key contributors, if nothing else, are built to win now. If you think that another hand can come in and do a better job with the current roster, especially given the investment made in assembling it, ruthless logic dictates you make a move, especially if the incumbent, like Corica was, is in the last year of their deal.
Indeed, while the opening three weeks would suggest that several of Sydney's veteran figures might be reaching an inflection point themselves, this is still a team fielding the likes of Robert Mak, Joe Lolley and Max Burgess. New striker Fábio Gomes has been poor across the opening three weeks, but his resume suggests he should be better than this. Not only did the City defeat continue a wretched, losing start to the season but it also marked 270 minutes that had also passed without one of the most well-credentialed (and expensive) sides in the league failing to find the back of the net. That's not good enough.
The toothlessness isn't something from the eye test, either, even acknowledging the caveats that need to be made about small sample sizes (although the Sydney board haven't given us much choice on that front). Per FotMob, the Sky Blues have registered a league-worst 2.7 expected goals (xG) across their opening three matches and though they've sent in a decent volume of shots this season (their 50 is good for equal fourth in the competition), the percentage of those efforts that are put on target, at 28%, is the worst in the league. Sydney's problem for several years under Corica was that they would create good chances but just couldn't put them away -- last year they were third in the league in xG with 46.8 and underperformed by six goals -- but this year they're not creating good chances either.
Defensively, they have gone from being an above-average defence to the second-worst in the league going of xG conceded. Goalkeeper Andrew Redmayne has hardly covered himself in glory across the opening three weeks, something he'd admit himself, but the defence in front of him -- with Alex Wilkinson retired and Jack Rodwell unable to stay fit -- has given up plenty of good chances.
Having reached 182 games in charge of Sydney, and already having gone through one heavily touted reformation in approach, club decision-makers appear to have observed this backsliding and determined that Corica had the answers to turn things around. Given all his success at the club, he can't be accused of never having had the answers but, as is the case for almost every coach at some point or another, it's difficult to shake the feeling that Corica and Sydney had reached their used-by date.
But even if the move maybe isn't surprising beyond the timing of it, there's still an undeniable sense that it is still a paradigm-changing moment for the Sky Blues and, to a certain extent, the A-League Men as a whole. For while the 0-year-old's time in Sydney will be of course recorded in the leagues' official history and statistics, his time at Moore Park is also one in which the story of the club, and the league, cannot be properly told without.
For almost a generation, Corica had been attached to Sydney as a player, youth coach, assistant, or head coach. He arrived when the club was a start-up concept franchise being bickered over by Football NSW and the Lowy family and left it as one of the most decorated teams in national league history. His achievements, listed at the tail-end of the press release announcing his departure like some kind of corporate epitaph, are extensive.
"As a player, Corica made 139 appearances, scoring 31 goals and Corica led the club as Head Coach in 182 matches. In total, he won five Championships, four Premierships, two Australia Cups, the Oceania Club Championship and an A-League Youth Championship," it read.
A legendary tenure. But all of that mattered little (nor, cruel as it is to admit, should it have) to Sydney decision-makers as they watched their side fall to City. Memories of an Australia Cup triumph just a month prior had evaporated. Luke Brattan appeared distraught on the pitch and Rhyan Grant suggested on the Network Ten coverage that complacency had set in amongst the group.
Normally in such circumstances, coaches would deny any accusations of complacency, at least externally. But when Grant's contention was put to him, Corica didn't disagree with it, nor did he put forward a thought as to what had gone wrong to start the season beyond that the side was "definitely missing something at the moment" and that "something's happened." With the benefit of hindsight, there was an air in the AAMI Park theatrette that evening that Corica and his side were standing at a crossroads and that the coach didn't know how much further he could trek, or how to navigate the path that lay ahead if he attempted to.
"But you need to stop the rot, really," he said. "And it has to stop this week."
Unfortunately for Corica, for chairman Scott Barlow and the rest of his board, stopping that rot appeared to start with ending his time at the club.
For the sentimentalists, perhaps the most lamentable thing is that this wasn't recognised at the end of last season. There's a case to be made that Corica's closest approximation in A-League context is Kevin Muscat, who himself had decorated stints as a player and coach at Melbourne Victory. But whereas Muscat and Victory recognised that he and the club needed a new direction and were able to consciously uncouple following the conclusion of the 2018-19 season, Corica will get no such sendoff.
It's a shame. Because even though the wounds from this will heal, his legacy deserves one.