The great thing about being a football fan is that, as one league starts to enter its latter stages, another re-enters the fray. In the women’s game, just such a transition is happening at this very time, with many of the major European seasons entering their final weeks and others such as the NWSL starting to take centre stage once again.
Another league reaching its conclusion is the A-League Women, with it’s regular season reaching a conclusion at the weekend and Sydney Women securing a third successive Premiers title (the award given to the team who tops the league at this stage of the campaign) after seeing off Newcastle Jets Women 4-0.
However, whilst there will have been celebrations in Australia’s largest city following this achievement, Ante Juric’s side will also be aware that the job is only half-done, with there still being the matter of the Finals stages to navigate in order to secure the Championship title. In both of the last two years, getting their hands on that particular trophy has proved to be a step too far for them, so there will undoubtedly be a desire among the squad to make it third time lucky and end their wait to lift it (which goes back to the 2018/19 season).
With that in mind, this tactical analysis will look in closer detail at not only why they have been successful in landing a third straight regular season title, but also how they can improve to give themselves the best possible chance ahead of those knockout matches, highlighting examples from previous matches of situations where they have demonstrated elements of fragility.
Attack
When analysing their attacking play, what is immediately evident is that Sydney Women play with a lot of clarity on the pitch, with players always fully aware of their roles in the overall game plan and what they need to do in each situation during their matches.
This is down to Juric’s philosophy largely revolving around keeping things simple, with Sydney’s preferred formation being a basic 4-3-3, which has been used in 69% of their matches this season, and implementing a game plan that is not filled with complex tactical details.
However, that is not to say that there aren’t areas of their play where Juric has put his own personal touch on things, and one of the most noticeable aspects of their performances where this is easily noticed is the structure of their forward line when they have the ball. As is evident here against Melbourne City Women, the central attacker is used as a link between the midfield and forward areas, with them tending to drop back and get on the ball before turning and releasing the two wingers into the areas behind the opposing defensive line.
In this case, it is Madison Haley who has moved back to take up the 10 role, and this creates an inverted triangle that has become something of a signature in Sydney’s attacking play. It has worked in their favour as the campaign has gone on, with it leading to many opponents following the ball and leaving spaces open, and that is where the threat that the two wide attackers pose is really allowed to flourish.
Ordinarily, those roles have been occupied by Cortnee Vine and Princess Ibini, and both have been arguably Sydney’s biggest goal threats as the season has gone on. Whilst they are both capable of cutting inside and running through the middle, it is more common to see them stay further towards the wings and look to make runs around the edges of the opposing defensive lines, with Vine in particular proving to be a strong competitor in 1-v-1 duels (she has won 41.2% of her individual battles during 2022/23, averaging 17.39 per game).
Their tendency to stay towards the wings has been particularly important when Sydney have been counterattacking up the field, as they are here against Melbourne City. Mackenzie Hawkesby has the ball and is looking to keep the attack progressing up the field, but the fact that Vine is off towards the nearside means that her pass needs to be diagonal and not vertical.
Again, what this shows is that Sydney are playing to their strengths, with Vine able to operate in the channels that she thrives in and not asked to play out of position. It is this that has enabled the team to turn 53.9% of their counterattacks into shots on goal this season, which demonstrates once again how Sydney’s tactics are about posing a threat but without overcomplicating things.
The other positive that comes from using the two wingers as the main attacking outlets is that it prevents their opponents from staying compact in the middle when on the back foot. Here, the fact that Vine has received the pass has forced Julia Grosso (not the Juventus Femminile and Canada midfielder) to move across to cut her route off as best she can, which then forces the next defender to drift over and so on, and the result is that these sizeable gaps are created.
This then allows Sydney to push other players into those spaces, and that is where the two eights in the team come in. More often than not, it has been Hawkesby and Sarah Hunter who have occupied those roles, and they have arguably been the most important players in the Sydney ranks when the team has the ball because they are the ones who facilitate the quick transitions and enable the ball to reach key players around the field.
However, it is not just accurate passing that these two players need to have, with them also required to have a good awareness of what is happening around the field and the ability to make quick decisions when in possession. This is particularly important when facing teams who sit back and try to close off potential passing avenues, just as Brisbane Roar Women are doing here, and the ability to keep hold of the ball when being closed down in order to allow others to get into the right areas is also a quality that both players need to have in their box of tricks.
Given all of that, it goes without saying that whoever is in those roles needs to be capable of covering a lot of ground during games, and this graphic shows not just the number of progressive passes that both Hunter and Hawkesby have made so far this season, but also the areas of the field that most of these passes come from.
The fact that both have tended to move across the pitch and drop deep to get on the ball highlights once again just how important they are to Sydney’s overall attacking play, and there is little doubt that the rest of the team would not be able to function in the same way without them.
Defence
In defence, a lot of what has made Sydney Women so difficult to break down this season is that, again, they play with a lot of organisation and understanding of what they need to do, and it doesn’t matter whether the ball is inside their own third or in the final third, because what is constantly clear is that they always have a plan.
When they have the opportunity to do so, Sydney have tended to press from the front and win the ball as high up the field as possible. However, the way that they have pressed has been very clever, and has shown a lot of tactical planning beforehand in order to enable players to execute the game plan without error.
In this case, Melbourne City are looking to play out from the back and initially look to be in control of the situation, with goalkeeper Sally James in possession and having a passing option open in right-back Kaitlyn Torpey.
However, this is what Sydney want to happen and have set up to allow, with Haley and Vine working hard to both cut off the options on the far side of the field and force James into having as little time as possible to make her decision.
In contrast, Ibini is not pressing and is intentionally hanging back, with her role here being to wait until the right moment to move in. Her target is Torpey, but she knows that, if she gets tight too early, she will allow James to simply clear her lines and send the ball towards the middle of the field. That would likely lead to Sydney winning the ball anyway, with them being successful in 47.8% of their aerial duels, but it would leave them with a greater distance to make up before they could even contemplate a shot on goal.
As it turned out, the plan worked to perfection, with Torpey caught in possession and giving the ball away to Ibini, and Sydney ended up getting a shot away at goal within a matter of seconds as a result.
When inside their own third, that theme of being attentive to detail continues, with Sydney once again demonstrating that they work hard on the training ground and ensure that every player knows what to do at each point of the game. More often than not, what they look to do in these situations is to switch to a back five formation, enabling them to stretch across the pitch without leaving the gaps open that their opponents did in the previous section of this scout report. However, whilst some teams would choose to then come out in turn and try to close the ball down, Sydney don’t, and that is where Juric demonstrates once again how he has blended a basic structure with his own ideas to make his side as robust as possible.
What Sydney are focusing on here is the mental side of the game, with them almost inviting their opponents, in this case city rivals Western Sydney Wanderers Women, into moving the ball around in front of them without being put under too much-sustained pressure. However, they know that, at some point, Western Sydney will need to try their luck and send a ball towards the defensive line, and that is what they are waiting for. In the end, it is Beth Gordon who makes the pass towards the line, with striker Sophie Harding, in the red circle, waiting to receive it.
However, this is where Sydney spring into action, with Charlotte McLean reaching the ball first and preventing Harding from controlling it, and the fact that Sydney as a team have won 67.5% of their defensive duels shows that, again, they are playing to their strengths and keeping things simple but effective.
When they need to, they can then add other elements into that defensive setup to make it even harder for opponents to break them down, and this is where the midfielders once again show their importance in the overall game plan.
In this case, Perth Glory Women have moved into Sydney’s third and are looking to transfer the ball into the middle, but, as Western Sydney found, it is difficult for them to locate a space in the middle to exploit. As a result, forward Gabriella Coleman is forced to move the ball into the areas just in front of the defensive line, and her initial target would have been Hana Lowry.
However, Hunter has spotted this and moves to close her down before the pass is made, forcing Coleman to reassess and instead send the ball towards New Zealand international Elizabeth Anton, as the white arrow indicates. Anton has space and time to control the ball, but is further away from goal, and that is the significant point to make because it allows Sydney to then push numbers towards her and prevent her from testing their goal in any way.
Therefore, as with their attacking play, what has made Sydney such an effective defensive side is the ability of individual players to execute their roles to perfection and to understand what they need to do in each different situation that they come across. The fact that they ended the season with the least goals conceded in the league (15) is a testament to their ability to work on these finer details and proves that they undoubtedly contributed to their third consecutive Premiers title.
Areas to work on
However, as mentioned at the beginning of the analysis, sealing that was only half the battle, with Sydney focusing their efforts on winning the Grand Final and going one further than they have managed to in the last two seasons.
Having any chance of doing so will require them to put on some almost flawless performances though, and, whilst it has been shown throughout the scout report that they have done a lot of things well, there are a few areas where they could have done better and which will need tidying up before the semi-final against Western United Women.
Firstly, they will need to ensure that they don’t allow individual players to become isolated in any area of the field, because, whilst they have mostly operated with a 4-3-3 that has seen plenty of link-up play, there have been occasions when players have not operated in the same vicinity and it has been harder for them to pose the same offensive threat.
The match against Melbourne City was one example of a game when, whether tactical or through a lack of energy, they didn’t look as fluent, with Ibini at the top of the field and having just been passed the ball, but lacking any options to move it to. Instead, the trio of Rachel Lowe, who made the pass, Hawkesby and Vine have stayed nearer the middle of the field, with none of them making any attempt to move up the field and join her.
Ibini did the best that she could with this situation, with her taking a shot on goal and narrowly missing the target, but there is no doubt that Sydney were unable to play to their full potential in this structure, intentional or not, and they will need to avoid players lacking options in this way if they are to have any chance of getting their hands on the Championship trophy.
Secondly, they will need to be more adaptable when out of possession, because, even though they have a clear setup that they fall back on when they lose it, it only works when the ball is ahead of them and they have time to set up in that shape.
When facing teams who attack with more speed, their lack of an alternative has been opened up, and one team who created plenty of problems for them through their ability to move the ball around quickly were Wellington Phoenix Women. The New Zealand club might have been one of the sides who spent the season at the foot of the table, but they have players who are capable of making intelligent dribbles and exploiting gaps, such as Paige Satchell and former Manchester City Women and Ajax Vrouwen midfielder Betsy Hassett.
When facing Sydney, they managed to continually transfer the ball into the areas that the two full-backs would be in before they could get back, and that led to situations like this, with Milly Clegg and fellow substitute Ava Pritchard getting either side of the back three and cutting them off from the rest of the team.
Therefore, again, not having a way of defending when their initial shape isn’t possible is something that Juric needs to look at ahead of their semi-final match, because, if one team can pick them apart in this way, then others will pick up on it and implement it into their game plan too.
The other thing that Sydney will need to watch out for is maintaining their line discipline, because, again, their setup works well when players don’t get tempted to move out and try to win the ball but falls apart on the occasions when they have. Here, Western United are looking to send the ball into the middle, with Emma Robers making the cross, and, rather than holding her position, one of the Sydney players has opted to come out and try to win the ball early.
However, she fails to connect with the ball and leaves a gaping hole in the line behind her, which is all the invitation that the home side needed as Serbia international Tyla-Jay Vlajnic set up Hannah Keane to score. The American is a player that defenders have to permanently keep an eye on when in these areas, because she offers a significant goal threat and finished the regular season as the league’s top scorer, with this just one of her 13 successful strikes, and yet Sydney seemed to neglect that fact once the gap had opened up, with them reacting too slowly and not sealing it off in time.
Therefore, the point to take from this is that Sydney need to ensure that, if they do persevere with their back three or back five shape when inside their own third, they stay in position and don’t leave invite opponents to play through them in the same way, because doing so could be the difference between a Championship title and another year of falling just short.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this tactical analysis has looked in detail at Sydney Women’s 2022/23 A-League Women season as a whole, picking out firstly the different areas of their attacking and defensive play that have led them to another appearance in the season-ending playoffs, and then analysing some of the areas where they can tighten up in order to seal a first Championship win in four years.
It might appear to some that the negative points raised are just a case of picking tiny holes in an overall positive season for the team, and that is true to some extent. However, Ante Juric stated at the weekend that “everyone wants to beat us”, and that means that they will be looking at those tiny details and adapting their game plans to exploit them as much as possible.
Therefore, if they want to go one step further than the last two seasons and end their wait for a Championship title, then Sydney will need to ensure that they are as flawless as possible, otherwise, they run the risk of once again losing out once again in the Grand Final. However, even without that final piece in the jigsaw, no-one can deny that it has been another positive season for them, and they can be proud of what they have already achieved even if what is still to come doesn’t end up going their way.
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