Sydney FC's Asian Champions League Campaign 2022

The Cove
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Sydney FC have included ten young Academy players in a 34-man AFC Champions League 2022 squad.

The young stars are part of the unbeaten Sky Blues New South Wales National Premier League side and will be called upon, if required against some of Asia’s top clubs.

Steve Corica’s side travel to Vietnam next week and have a tough schedule with two matches each against Korean Champions Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors, Japanese Champions Yokohama F. Marinos and Vietnamese Emporer’s Cup winners Hoang Anh Gia Lai.

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“We will narrow the squad to 26 before we leave for Vietnam but we are looking at some younger boys and maybe a few will get the opportunity to travel with the squad,” said the Head Coach.

“It’s a great chance for them to gain experience in a fantastic tournament.

“We are going there to get out of our group and to win as many games as possible,” he said.

“We have fantastic experience in this competition, having qualified for six out of the last seven tournaments, and we need to convert that into success.”

Sydney FC’s first three fixtures in AFC Champions League 2022 Group stage in Vietnam

Sydney FC’s players and staff will enter a bubble for the three weeks in Vietnam and will only be allowed outside of their hotel for training and playing matches.

All of Sydney FC’s foreign national players (Bobô, Ninkovic, Barbarouses, Le Fondre, Narsingh) will travel with the squad, however only a maximum of three out of the five can play in any one game.

“It will give some of the other players, potentially the young boys, a chance to show what they can do in a tough environment,” said Corica.

“We saw Calem Nieuwenhof step up last time we played in AFC Champions League and there’s no reason why some of these other players can’t take that opportunity should it arise.

“We will need to rotate our squad a lot due to the tight schedule and a number of players can expect to get minutes.”

The ten NPL players include Aaron Gurd (20 years old), Corey Hollman (18), Jake Girdwood-Reich (17), Adrian Segecic (17), Clayton Taylor (18), Jaiden Kurcharski (19), Oscar Priestman (19), Kai Kamikura (19), Jayden Trenkoski (20) and Zac Sapsford (19).

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Sydney FC’s final three fixtures in AFC Champions League 2022 Group stage in Vietnam

The Sky Blues have also included livewire striker Elvis Kamsoba in the travelling party.

The Burundi International is expected to return for the second part of the group stage.

Three of Sydney FC’s matches will take place at 9pm AEST and the other three will kick off at midnight AEST.

Sydney FC’s Principal Partner for the AFC Champions League 2022 are MA Financial.

Sydney FC’s AFC Champions League 2022 Squad

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Staying up until 2am to watch us lose to Jeonbuk and Yokohama was not part of the plan.

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I wonder how the other teams will cope with the quick turn around in games? If anything our guys should be use to it given the season they’ve had so far.

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So who knows which of these youth prospects are most likely to have an impact (both in this tournament and beyond)

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So is Nieuwenhof confirmed long term again? Or is it just that “no return date” kinda deal ?

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I take it as either hes signed elsewhere for next season or hes out for the season.

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Maybe Zullo’s taken him under his wing.

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Osteitis pubis is a 9-12 month injury

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Apparently he should be good to go again at start of next season. Was this the same injury Brosque had in Arnie Season 2?

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Segicic has already featured in the A-League for a few mins, but the other ones to watch from what I’ve seen are Kamikura at the back, Sapsford and Kucharski up front. I hope at least one of these three get to travel to Vietnam.

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I like the sound of that name. Although do we know if he’s open to throwing in a W and a Z somewhere in there? Needs to be more Polish. Something like Kucharzewski

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Personally I was hoping for Maco. Polish does nothing for our Balkan quota.

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Shanghai Port has withdrawn from the comp, meaning that matches against the 4th-placed team in each group won’t count towards determining the best 2nd-placed teams for progression

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Well at least we’re not playing Shanghai Shenhua for the millionth time

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Worried we’re going to get here and find out just how fatigued we really are…

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Just realised we are playing Sunday so yeah we are going to be tired AF

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Do we still have a sister-club agreement with them?

I don’t think it was fruitful at all.

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Wait we had an agreement of some kind with that piece of shit club?

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Yeah, ages and ages ago. From 2009 at least. Not sure if/when it ended.

We lost 2-1 in a friendly behind closed doors that we played over there. Little fun fact, it was the only game that Tony Popovic took charge of us in as a caretaker coach before Vitezslav Lavicka came in.

Mark Bridge was supposed to go on loan to them as part of the deal, but it fell through for a reason I can’t remember why (SS had already filled their foreign quota or something?) and in the end he went on loan to Tianjin Teda).

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I just thought I’d have a little look at our competitions’ recent form.

Jeonbuk - 4th in K-League (4-2-3). They’ve won their last three games, including a 4-0 win in their most recent fixture against the bottom of the table. They’ve had some fixture congestion but last played on Saturday so should be fairly well rested.

Yokohama - 2nd in J-League (5-3-2) but they’ve played more games than most of their competition so the table position isn’t completely reflective. Patchy recent form with 2 wins, 2 draws and a loss in their last 5 games. Not a lot of fixture conjestion though and they last played on Sunday so should be well rested.

Huang Anh Gia Lai - 9th in V-League (0-2-2) and one Vietnamese Cup game against V-League opposition, which they won on penalties after 0-0. The league has been paused since mid-March so these guys are probably going to be pretty rusty. The Cup game was on the weekend so they’ve definitely played some competitive football at least. Weirdly they’ve only scored two goals but have also kept three clean sheets in the league along with their cup clean sheet.

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