Sydney FC fans were supposed to enjoy a season of promise. Instead they endure a bitter malaise. The club is locked in a suffocating spiral as a dwindling tribe of disgruntled supporters show up to sing for a stuttering and terrified squad.
How did it come to this?
The champions built on their famous double by replacing an ageing and failed marquee in John Aloisi with a fringe Socceroo and genuine number 10. A front office headed by the impeccably credentialed Edwin Lugt and bankrolled by David Traktovenko stated the ambition to become a premier club in Asia (later the "preeminent club in Asia") and coach Viteslav Lavicka looked forward to warming up for his title defence with glamour preseason friendlies against Everton, Rangers, Blackburn and AEK Athens.
Now Lugt is gone. The Festival of Football was a lonely failure. Sydney FC could not even claim the false honour of a finals place. The Asian Champions League campaign is crippled, almost certainly beyond repair. Last season's mastermind is tottering despite his recent contract extension, undermined by his one dimensional approach, limited squad and failure to recruit players who can excel within his system.
I have already chronicled how the A League campaign fell apart under the weight of poor recruitment, a cascade of injuries and the unexpected acceleration in the quality of the A League. But the ACL is another matter.
Last week Sydney FC capitulated against Kashima Antlers. The club has failed to win a home game in the ACL and departs for unfriendly shores against superior opposition. Three points in Shanghai are an absolute necessity for a side that will face up against group leaders Kashima and Suwon with no clear idea of how to beat them.
More experienced scribes than I have already written about how Sydney FC's new low standards of ambition are a disgraceful mockery of the club's potential. Michael Cockerill believes that the club must recruit a Harry Kewell-level marquee player to haul itself out of a death spiral. I agree with the need to recruit a genuine marquee striker and believe that a Yorke or Fowler level signing would bring back 5,000 fans to the first home game, possibly more. But there is a particular type of striker that is required to entice the thousands of paying members to every home game.
Sydney FC fans demand more than football. We know that the SFS will never host a technical exhibition to match what we can see at home on television. But Sydney FC's greatest problem is its lack of flair. The idea of enduring 90 minutes of Mark Bridge and Dimitri Petratos playing out of position is more than most can bear. It was equally frustrating to witness the armband pass to a player not deemed worthy of a new contract in Stuart Musialik. How can a club not have more than one leader?
Sydney need flair and belief in equal measure. They need a swashbuckling striker who will show more heart than Bridge or Bruno Cazarine, and better touch than Juho Makela. Alex Brosque was popular because he believed in his own abilities. Precious few Sky Blues do the same - Shannon Cole's enduring popularity is based on his confidence, not his defensive positioning.
Kewell would fit the bill (hopefully his contract would include a requirement that he stay on his feet and play nice with the referees). Michael Owen's Premier League appeal would also do quite nicely. Miroslav Klose and Ruud Van Nistelrooy round out the quartet of impossible targets, but this is the ambition that Sydney FC must show.
More likely marquee targets are Vince Grella or Scott Chipperfield - neither would fill the flair void that Nicky Carle cannot match on his own. Whoever replaces Lugt will have one hell of a job finding the marquee man that Sydney rightly crave.
