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Western Sydney Wanderers manager Alen Stajcic has given fans of the club something to believe in.
After just one finals appearance in seven years, consistent seasons of promise that were followed by flop after flop and a dwindling supporter base that progressively looked different to the passionate hordes that once flocked to Parramatta, the Wanderers might just be back.
And doesn’t the A-League need that to be the case. Western Sydney loomed as the jewel in the league’s crown when it entered back in 2012/13, with three top-two finishes across its opening four seasons and an Asian Champions League locked away in the trophy cabinet to boot.
Of course, there was no domestic championship to confirm the brilliant foundational work of then-coach Tony Popovic, yet the fans cared little. The edgy RBB took on the might of Sydney FC’s Cove and enjoyed the beating of them, both on and off the pitch.
The supporter group rocked the boat, the Wanderers played in a similar fashion and the prospect that the most populous region of a major city in Australia had a team on their hands that would morph into something very, very special appeared to be a fait accompli.
(Photo by Speed Media/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Then, as the sporting history books will show, it all fell apart for the Western Sydney Wanderers. The manager departed for failed tenures abroad, poor players were brought in, the best ones left and the fans walked out the door in droves across a five-year period that had A-League bosses concerned and mystified.
How could such a successful team be deserted by the people that were there from the beginning; the folks who were supposedly prepared to die for a club that represented their area and fought for the working-class folk that needed an A-League voice up against the elitist Sydney FC?
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Frankly, some of us saw the writing on the wall and the fact that the very fabric upon which the Wanderers were built was only partly stable.
The team pulls a little less than half the crowd it did during those early glory days and there is a good reason why. A small percentage of the folk that jumped on the bandwagon, brought weapons to matches and attended for the fight with police, security and opposition fans were almost certain to leave when the going got tough.
Many others caught the bug and came along for the ride without ever really caring about football or the A-League. If they had, they would’ve bought Sky Blue shirts when the A-League began.
That was my view right from the beginning and I copped plenty for holding it. However, I was correct and the people who remained in the stands through the less successful seasons that followed the Wanderers’ blistering start to life in the A and Asian Champions Leagues, are the people who deserve much credit, as Western Sydney start to work their way into the 2024/25 season.
Alen Stajcic is a very different man to Tony Popovic and the bandwagoners who hijacked the early days of the Wanderers. Measured, softly spoken and always ruthless in his efficiency, he has been successful wherever he has travelled as a manager, aside perhaps for a difficult time in Perth where it is questionable any manager would be able to turn around the fortunes of the contemporary squad.
After a rocky start to the current season and a sooky player manager who attempted to bully Stajcic and secure extra minutes for Juan Mata, despite the player still looking a few months away from peak fitness, the man at the helm has the red and black unbeaten in four and on the cusp of the top six with a bullet, as well as having a game in hand of a few teams above them.
Juan Mata. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)
A win against Macarthur will see them inside that space for the first time this season and the man who led the Matildas to their best ever world ranking and began the rebuild at the Mariners, on the verge of doing something special with a team in his home city.
Unlike many of the folk who were there at the beginning, I’ll be at Wanderland today, as a paying customer with my family and not in the press box, cheering on a coach and team that have deserved that support with their play this season.
Far from a Wanderers fan, I altruistically believe the club is an important pillar in the overall A-League picture. There will be plenty of diehards there with me, however, it would be great to see a few others who ditched the club cheaply when things went sour.
Aside from the very small number of violent thugs who the league simply does not need, it would be nice to see a few of those former fans return and support their team through both the thick and the thin, starting this afternoon.