Culture, commitment, competition: How Sydney FC became the A-League Women's most successful club

It's still dark as the players shuffle carefully down the grassy slope and spill out onto the training field at Macquarie University in Sydney's northern suburbs.

The pitch sits in a shallow basin ringed by pale gumtrees, backing onto a national park threaded through by walking trails and a clear, twisting river.

They only take what they need across the car-park from the main building to the quiet field near the back of the complex: water bottles, balls, cones, poles.

Everyone helps carry things; it's just what you do at Sydney FC.

Although it's near the motorway, you can still hear the birds begin to stir as the sun gently rises over the buildings to the east. There aren't many cars on the road at this time of morning, anyway.

Remy Siemsen is awake earlier than most during the A-League Women season. She sets her alarm for 5am every Monday and Tuesday, arriving at the training base for a 6am start.

Even over the past few weeks, as the sky opened up and the nearby river swelled with cold, relentless rain, Siemsen and her team-mates were out there in the dark: getting touches on the ball in small sheva circles, focusing on their form as they skipped over ladders and wove around poles, scything their arms through the drizzle to clock their high-speed metres.

Then their thoughts turned to whichever game is next, working on half or full-field formations and passages of play. These sessions are over by 8am, giving the players enough time to shower, change, and rush off to work or school.

Every training session – whether in the early mornings or the late afternoons – is a battle. It's a battle against themselves as much as it is against each other; pushing one another ever-further towards where they believe they can be.

And that, for