Now, heading to a Grand Final, he reflects with raw honesty and insight into the impact Western\u2019s demise had on him, the human toll of football mismanagement, that he\u2019s had to bounce back from to become a key part of Sydney FC\u2019s run to the decider. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been, just a stressful 10 months ever since everything happened,\u201d Garuccio reflected.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously I was out of contract as well with Western United.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was that thing that happened at the start.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got married last off season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was in limbo with my contract and then I ended up re-signing with Western.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt that time there were other A-League clubs that were quite interested and made offers, but I wanted to obviously stay at Western United being captain and I was comfortable there.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen when everything happened, at the start I was like, alright, it is what it is. I\u2019m sure something will come up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually got to a stage where, yeah, there was nothing really on the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hadn\u2019t heard from Sydney FC at this point and I was speaking with Avondale.<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually started just calling some A-League clubs because I was like, man, this is actually my career.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt got to that stage where I was thinking, this is actually my career and it could be done.<\/p>\n
\u201cNumber one, I wasn\u2019t prepared for it to be done. So it\u2019s not like I was ready to finish my career and go into something else.<\/p>\n
\u201cNumber two, in my mind and in my heart and my body, I didn\u2019t feel like I was done as a professional. I feel like I\u2019m still playing probably at the highest level that I have of my career. And I feel like I\u2019ve got a lot to give. So I was not really happy with that, but that\u2019s the way it was looking.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I started calling A-League clubs and called Adelaide, I called Macarthur and they were kind of just like, nah, yeah, just no, we either can\u2019t offer you, we\u2019ve got a player in your position.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was basically hearing the same thing over and over again and I was sitting there going, how the f* am I in this position?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just didn\u2019t feel fair, didn\u2019t feel real that that was happening. And I\u2019m sure other players, my Western teammates were having the same thing happen to them. <\/p>\n
\u201cSome of those boys didn\u2019t even end up getting contracts. So I can\u2019t imagine how it would have been for them. I suppose the only silver lining for me is that Sydney came in.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think if you speak to a lot of the boys on my team, probably for the first six weeks, eight weeks, I came in with an injury, which again, wasn\u2019t ideal, I wasn\u2019t with the boys, I wasn\u2019t able to integrate with the team and like a lot of them.\u201d <\/p>\n
He got injured immediately \u2013 even though he was trying to stay fit he hadn\u2019t been in a day to day professional sporting environment for nearly two months. They can \u201ctake the piss out of me now\u201d \u2013 but at the start, it wasn\u2019t pretty. <\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the boys, they always take the piss out of me now. They were like, you were in depression, you were absolutely depressed,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou were a shell of a human when you got here. <\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like that. I felt like my life had been turned upside down. I felt like, what was I doing?<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/SEASO-LAUNCH-2025-LOW-RES-0139-1024x683.webp\")
Former Sydney coach Ufuk Talay presenting Ben Garuccio with his jersey ahead of the season. <\/p>\n
\u201cI would wake up in the morning and be like, what the f* am I, how am I here? How am I living in Sydney? It didn\u2019t feel real, it didn\u2019t feel right.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt probably wasn\u2019t until I actually did get fit and played my first game and, it\u2019s crazy the way football works. I suppose the trials and tribulations that you go through and the ups and downs and it\u2019s full of them. And I\u2019m sure a million other players have got stories that are probably a lot worse than this. But yeah, I guess looking back now, how you can go through such a bad period and then sometimes there\u2019s a reason for things happening.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can sometimes be cruel and sometimes you don\u2019t realise it straight away, but maybe in the long run you can look back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had a few people from Western that have messaged me saying what a crazy year, but now what an opportunity you have and who knows, maybe we wouldn\u2019t have been in this position if Western stayed, maybe we didn\u2019t make finals and maybe we didn\u2019t make a grand final and now I\u2019ve got an opportunity to win something else.<\/p>\n
\u201cA crazy kind of year and I\u2019m just grateful that my body\u2019s been fit and obviously grateful for Sydney FC and the club and the team here because yeah, I\u2019ve said it all along, we\u2019ve got a good team, we\u2019ve got one of the best squads and if we click, we can go all the way and I suppose we\u2019re one game away now. So let\u2019s see.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2276538244-1024x683.webp\")
Sydney FC celebrate making the Grand Final. Photo: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Mauk replied: \u201cFair play. Like you said, a lot of people go through worse. We\u2019re not saying that you\u2019re living on the streets, you\u2019re not struggling to earn a dollar, but in football terms, this is your world, this is your life.<\/p>\n
\u201c(That\u2019s why I was saying at the time): what are you talking about going back to NPL? It shouldn\u2019t even be a thought, but that\u2019s just the way it was like in that moment for you and you\u2019re too good of a player, you\u2019re too good of a professional and that\u2019s the reason why things have turned out the way they have for you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Behind every great sporting moment is a story the fan doesn\u2019t see. For Ben Garuccio, as he celebrated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,329835,596,329836,85,57712],"class_list":["post-684214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-ben-garuccio","tag-football","tag-football-friends-with-ben-and-stef","tag-sports","tag-sydney-fc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}