Sydney FC can take another huge stride towards the A-League premiership when they host Western Sydney Wanderers in the first Sydney Derby to be played at Kogarah on Friday night.
The Sky Blues have 10 matches to play in the regular season, including a game in hand on Perth Glory and two on Melbourne City, with Sydney FC 13 points clear at the top of the A-League.
It is a busy time for the club, with Sydney FC to essentially play a match every four days until April. While they enjoyed 19 days off between their round 17 A-League win over Brisbane at Kogarah and Champions League defeat to Yokohama F. Marinos last Wednesday night, that match was the start of nine games in 40 days for the Sky Blues.
These include four matches at Kogarah, starting with their rescheduled Sydney Derby against Wanderers.
The original match was postponed earlier this month after wild weather hit the St George district, making the Kogarah pitch unplayable.
The Wanderers, who need to win to stay in touch with the top six, handed Sydney FC their only league defeat of the season so far in round three.
Sydney FC faced the short trip north to take on Central Coast on Sunday, where they bounced back from the Yokohama defeat to down the Mariners 3-0.
Youngsters Marco Tilio and Harry Van der Saag were the heroes with their late goals following Milos Ninkovic's opener.
"I'm very pleased with the result, it's been a tough week," Sydney FC coach Steve Corica said.
"I think the boys showed great character today. We defended well and kept another clean sheet.
"We wanted to make sure we came back and won this game. To get the three points is vital for us and we move forward again. You've got to dig deep in games like these.
"It just didn't work out for us in Japan. To come back and get the win showed good character, and I'm very pleased for the young boys who scored too.
"Marco has been waiting a long time, he's been looking really good in training. He's got ability to run with the ball and has been banging them in in the Y-League. I'm very pleased for him and Harry.
"Full credit to Yokohama, they were very good. They played well, got the goals they needed but I think it showed we hadn't played for three weeks.
"They play a very high tempo with the ball, without the ball. That probably surprised us because we hadn't played for three weeks because we had one game called off due to the rain in Sydney and obviously the Shanghai SIPG game was called off as well, with the reasons obviously the coronavirus."
