{"id":61087,"date":"2026-07-29T20:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T20:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/61087\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T20:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T20:40:12","slug":"tottenham-manager-roberto-de-zerbi-praises-sydney-fc-and-patrick-kisnorbo-after-sydney-super-cup-clash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/61087\/","title":{"rendered":"Tottenham manager Roberto De Zerbi praises Sydney FC and Patrick Kisnorbo after Sydney Super Cup clash"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sydney FC\u2019s organisation and their youngsters\u2019 desire to dictate on the ball caught the eye of storied manager Roberto De Zerbi during Tottenham\u2019s pre-season Sydney Super Cup win that was decided by penalties after a 1-1 draw at Allianz Stadium.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Sky Blues, who fielded a relatively baby faced side outside of Rhyan Grant, Ben Garuccio and Takahiro Sekine, found their way into the game after a baptism of fire from Spurs and worked up enough control to land a second half equaliser through Sekine, a recruit from Urawa Red Diamonds in Japan. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think they play very well,\u201d De Zerbi said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI spoke wiht their coach to make congratulation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey played very well with a very clear style.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a difficult country, no, because in Australia football is not the most important sport.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI am happy, in another country, so far from Europe there is a team who play, who want to play, who want to keep the ball, with a clear style, with a big organisation.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThere are a lot of good, young players in Sydney.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tottenham manager De Zerbi and Sydney FC\u2019s Patrick Kisnorbo shared an embrace as they traded places in the Allianz Stadium press conference room later in the night. <\/p>\n

DETAILS: Sydney FC hold their own against De Zerbi\u2019s Spurs but Premier League giants win via pre-season penalty shootout<\/a><\/p>\n

TEL: Watch: Spurs winger lured by Ange scores sparkling free kick in Australia against Sydney FC<\/a><\/p>\n

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It isn\u2019t just the players who get the chance to match themselves against benchmarks on the park.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sydney\u2019s A-League Championship winning coach Kisnorbo was simply buzzing to have been in the Italian\u2019s presence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spoke to him in the press conference the other day. He is a special person, an innovator of the game, a genius to be honest,\u201d Kisnorbo beamed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have that in an environment where you ply your trade, very lucky to spend a\u00a0hello and a goodbye.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat a man.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

With Spurs missing a number of first team players, and coming up against a manager with the highest tactical acumen, it was a great setting for the Sydney boss, in his first pre-season at the club, to test his players. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou sort of know the way they might set up, that it would be difficult, we would have to suffer, which physically we did,\u201d he reflected.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I thought some time we held our own and played some great stuff but for us it was about working on things for the Cup and put that together against a world class outfit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

De Zerbi has built a reputation as a passionate, flamboyant manager over the years with a passion for swashbuckling football, often building teams who overachieve, with Brighton the most familar to Premier League fans, before he went to Marseille in France. He has innovated with the way he retains possession with sophisticated structures and movements to beat opponents\u2019 press.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Usually a coach who comes in and makes a short, instant impact, his arrival at Spurs kept them in the top flight in dire circumstances, and now he\u2019s enjoying his first pre-season working with the club.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Sydney FC v Spurs. Photo: Lucas Petrou.<\/p>\n

Tottenham\u2019s veteran defender Ben Davies explained the kind of impact that has had on the team.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think firstly, he speaks incredibly well and passionately and is able to really implement his style on his team quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut he is just a man who is obsessed with football, the details he brings you are incredible. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is really just a pleasure to work for him. Even my age, been around football for a long time, you feel like you\u2019re learning new things pretty much every day. Can\u2019t speak highly enough of him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sydney FC\u2019s organisation and their youngsters\u2019 desire to dictate on the ball caught the eye of storied manager…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7108,56936,247,1643,11861,12380],"class_list":["post-61087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sydney","tag-patrick-kisnorbo","tag-roberto-de-zerbi","tag-sydney","tag-sydney-fc","tag-sydney-super-cup","tag-tottenham"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}