Douglas Costa and Juan Mata talk up Sydney Derby match

Former Juventus star Douglas Costa and former Manchester United man Juan Mata are two of the biggest stars to join the A-League in the last few years. Speaking to the media this week, the stars talked up this Saturday’s Sydney Derby between Costa’s Sydney FC and Mata’s Western Sydney Wanderers.

Costa ready to give everything

Douglas Costa joined Sydney FC in late-August. The club took their time integrating the Brazilian into the side, but now he is ready for whatever the club needs him to do. The 34-year-old says he is fit and roaring to go for this Saturday’s match.

“ feel really good,” Costa said on Wednesday, “I’m more than aware that this will be my first Derby and I know there is a lot of expectation in these games and me and my team-mates are working so hard to win this.

“Saturday is going to be the first game of the season and where I go I always try to get trophies and this will be no different,” he added.

When asked about the Sky Blues’ tactics for the match against their bitter rivals, Costa said his side want to be on the front foot.

“We have already played two matches so we are really ready for this game. We want to push forward, we want to give 100% and I always want to be on the front foot,” he explained.

“It can be hard to grasp what it means just being here for a month but you can see the atmosphere changing when you call it a ‘Derby’. Not only here but in Brazil and Germany they call it Derby and I know I want to win this one.

“In this Derby, we are going to try to show everything that we can!”

Mata downplays star power

Juan Mata was much more reserved than Douglas Costa in his prematch comments. He says it is important not to get tied up in the battle between himself and the Brazilian.

“This is a game between Wanderers and Sydney FC, not between Douglas and me, but we are both very happy to be here and have the appreciation of the country and the football lovers,” Mata said.

The 36-year-old stressed that this was too important of a match to boil down to just two players.

“It’s a very passionate game for both teams, so I think we need to be mature enough to handle all the emotions, and try to play our game and try to win,” he said.

“There’s going to be a lot of emotions. You need to be careful with your aggression, you need to watch out for yellow and red cards. You have to watch out for mistakes.”

Mata has played just 10 minutes of football since September 2023, so he might not feature much for the Wanderers in this match, but he does expect to play.

The betting sites have Sydney FC as narrow favourites here. PlayUp gives the Sky Blues $2.28 chances to win compared to the Wanderers’ $2.75 odds. The soccer betting sites also predict this will be a high scoring match. The total goals over/under line has been set at 3.5 goals.