'It is special': Brattan relishing Postecoglou reunion

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This was published 4 years ago

'It is special': Brattan relishing Postecoglou reunion

By Dominic Bossi

Wednesday night's clash against Yokohama Marinos holds a special significance for Sydney FC midfielder Luke Brattan - and not just because he will make his return to the Asian Champions League after a five-year absence. The clash will also see Brattan come up against the coach he credits for kicking off his professional career.

Ange Postecoglou is the owner of one of the most impressive CVs of any Australian coach, having won league titles at home and abroad - not to mention the Asian Cup with the Socceroos - but one of his more unheralded achievements was unearthing a player who has gone on to become one of the most consistent A-League midfielders of the past decade.

Postecoglou gave Brattan his first professional contract and debut back in 2010 at Brisbane Roar and, some ten years later, the midfielder is still thankful for the opportunity given to him by Postecoglou.

"It’s going to be pretty a special game, he started my professional career in Brisbane," Brattan said. "We were very successful in Brisbane together. He had me in a few Socceroos camps as well but I never got any game time. He’s got this great Yokohama team playing exciting football. It is special, it’s funny how football work."

As if the Sky Blues' task in travelling to Japan to face the newly-crowned J-League champions was not hard enough, they meet Postecoglou's Yokohama side having not played a match in 19 days.  The postponement of the Sydney derby due to wet weather and their Asian Champions League match against Shanghai last week leaves Sydney badly short of match fitness heading into this tie.

It is far from ideal preparation, admits defender Ryan McGowan, but the postponements have at least meant the squad has been able to give the Yokohama tie their full focus.

Luke Brattan remains thankful to Ange Postecoglou for starting his career.

Luke Brattan remains thankful to Ange Postecoglou for starting his career.Credit: Getty

"Ideally we would have preferred to play the game when it was to be scheduled... but it’s given us the opportunity to have a few more football sessions, which has been good," McGowan said. "If we played the derby, it would have taken us a couple of days to recover and we wouldn’t have had that much time on the training ground to work on stuff we want to do, so it’s worked out quite well."

While Sydney spent more than a fortnight preparing for this match, Yokohama kicked off their Asian Champions League campaign with an impressive 2-1 win away to Korean champions, Jeonbuk, last week.

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"We are under no illusions with how difficult this is going to be on Wednesday, especially with them being at home," McGowan said. "They are just a very good team, very well drilled and organised. They seem to be on the same page with everyone that is playing with them and I think that showed with their performance last week."

Postecoglou's side have paid the price for their success and were forced to spend heavily to keep their championship winning team together. They reportedly paid nearly $3 million to sign Brazilian defender Thiago Martins on a permanent basis from Palmeiras and outlaid $1.6m to make permanent Theerathon Bunmathan's loan from Muanthong.

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