page_title: 2009–10 Sydney FC season
section_title: Pre-season
hierarchical_section_title: 2009–10 Sydney FC season / Preview / Pre-season
caption_attribution_description: English: Sydney FC take on the Central Coast Mariners in a pre-season friendly game against the Central Coast Mariners
context_page_description: The 2009–2010 season was Sydney FC's fifth consecutive season in the A-League since its inception. It was an historic year for the club taking out the domestic double by winning the premier's plate and the championship during the season.
context_section_description: After a disappointing 2008–09 season, Sydney FC went straight into action, sacking coach John Kosmina. A week later, Czech coach Vítězslav Lavička was signed as Sydney's fifth manager in as many seasons.
  Sydney had a friendly match in China, with new sister club Shanghai Shenhua. Sydney FC lost the match 2–1, with their goal coming from striker Alex Brosque, who scored halfway through the second half to level the scores at 1–1. John Aloisi, who had a poor last season, showed he had hit form, but being very unlucky to have two goals disallowed during the first half. It was the first game for former Sydney and Socceroos Tony Popovic as caretaker coach.
  On 3 April, it was confirmed that new coach Lavicka had signed his first player, former Slovakian International Karol Kisel, who had played under Viteslav when he coached AC Sparta Prague.
  Sydney was thrown into scandal involving new signing Sebastian Ryall, who was charged with the sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl, while he was playing with Melbourne Victory. He was stood down by the Football Federation Australia (FFA) from the Sydney FC, and national team until 3 September. These charges were later dropped.
  When the FFA announced that the usual A-League pre-season cup wouldn't be held due to financial reasons, it meant that teams would have to organise their own friendlies in the months before the start of the season. This opened up many possibilities. Across the A-League, a few teams managed to bring over some well known sides. Sydney was linked with English Premier League side Everton for their Asian Tour, and recently relegated Middlesbrough FC, who both pulled out in the last minute, and stated that if they were to tour Australia, they would want to play more than one team. At one stage, Spanish team Barcelona FC were being rumoured to be coming out. Nevertheless, the new coach organised a dozen friendlies with strong New South Wales Premier League and New South Wales Super League teams. Despite the opposition being weaker than expected, Sydney had a fantastic start. Sydney also trialled several overseas players and on 25 June Lavicka signed South Korean Left Back Byun Sung-Hwan.
  Along with the new outfits, Sydney FC also welcomed a new major sponsor, Japanese electronic company Sony, who signed a contract with Sydney. They replaced JVC, who decided not to renew their sponsorship due to the global financial crisis of 2008–2009. New South Wales-based electronics retailer Bing Lee continued to sponsor Sydney FC. Bing Lee's logo was featured on the front of the home jerseys and on the front and back of the right leg of the away jerseys, whilst Sony will now take up the away jersey, and the front and back of the right leg of the home kit. Coach Vitezslav Lavicka signed his last player of the season, Stephan Keller, on a one-year contract, who had recently been released by then Eredivisie club De Graafschap after they had been relegated. He played in the final trial game against the Jets and impressed significantly in the 1–1 draw.
caption: Sydney FC V Central Coast Mariners, friendly, 2009
exif: {"Image Make": "SAMSUNG", "Image Model": "SGH-i900", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image Software": "Mits Camera", "Image ExifOffset": "2188", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[1, 0, 0, 0]", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[0, 0, 0]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "E", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[0, 0, 0]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSAltitude": "0", "GPS GPSMapDatum": "WGS-84", "Image GPSInfo": "4564", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "1/96", "Thumbnail YResolution": "1/96", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "4824", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "10628", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/33", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "262", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:07:06 20:25:57", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:07:06 20:25:57", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "4507/1000", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2560", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1920", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}