The Western Sydney Wanderers announced today that the club has a new head coach, former Central Coast Mariners, Perth Glory and Matildas boss Alen Stajcic.
Stajcic take overs in the wake of Marko Rudan leaving the club on the 16th of May, and the backroom palace intrigue which resulted in long standing Chairman & high profile club co-owner Paul Lederer stepping down from the Chairman role.
The move for Stajcic and the removal of Lederer was orchestrated by co-owner Jefferson Cheng. Cheng, who along with Glenn Duncan and David Slade, have been the less visible element of the ownership consortium since they bought the club from Football Federation Australia in 2014. The triumvirate out-voted Lederer and his desire to bring in an overseas coach who was rumoured to be Dutchman Ruud Brood.
Stajcic was headed for the exit at Perth Glory from the moment that club was sold to Ross Pelligra earlier this year, with the Glory ending the season in dead last despite the efforts of A-League Golden Boot winner Adam Taggart and his 20 goals, and his tenure was officially terminated on the 25th of June. Stajcic had a three year stint in charge of the Central Coast Mariners after leaving the Matildas head coach role in controversial fashion. After a short interim period in the 2018/19 A-League season, he finished in last with the Mariners in 2019/20 and then 3rd in 2020/21 before quitting in the off-season due to an apparent split with Mariners ownership over the direction & funding of the club & playing group.
The appointment of a manager from the team who finished last will raise eyebrows with club supporters, with the explanation coming from Cheng's involvement with the Philippines women's national football team. Cheng had been a sponsor and administrator for the team from 2017 until his very recent resignation. That administrative role that lead to Stajcic being appointed as the head coach of the Philippine women's team in 2021, where he lead the team to qualification for the 2023 Women's World Cup with their semi-final finish at the 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup, winning the 2022 AFF Women's Championship and ending his tenure with a fighting group stage exit from Group A at the World Cup in New Zealand.
Stajcic currently has a combined 28% win-rate from his time in Perth and Gosford and a staggering negative 56 goal difference. Wanderers fans will be hoping that his time at the club will be more reflective of his 2020-21 season with the Mariners, where he won 12, drew 6 and lost 9, hopefully with a better finals run than their first week, extra time 2-0 exit to Macarthur FC who were playing a man down for almost an hour. With a new coach and new chairman coming onto the scene it is likely that more staff & players will leave the club in the weeks before pre-season opens with another new dawn for a club that has been struggling for any kind of consistency in the past decade.
The Wanderers next competitive match is the Australia Cup Round of 32 match against Brisbane City, in Brisbane at Spencer Park on Wednesday the 31st of July with kick-off at 7:30pm. The A-League season is set to kick-off in October.
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