The Graham Arnold-coached team has a hard draw to finish the regular season, with this Sunday's away game against Wellington Phoenix to be followed by matches with Adelaide United (at home), Perth Glory (away), Newcastle Jets (away) and Wellington again (away).
Sydney is third on the competition table, level on points with both second-placed Melbourne Victory and fourth-placed Perth, four points behind leader Wellington and one point ahead of fifth-placed Adelaide.
Since there is a sizeable gap to sixth-placed Melbourne City and seventh-placed Brisbane Roar it is reasonable to assume Sydney will finish in the top five, but where exactly is anyone's guess with all five spots possible.
Amazingly, despite having played 10 away games compared to 12 home games so far this season, Sydney has picked up 22 points away compared to just 16 at home.
It is unbeaten away, with six wins and four draws. At home, it has four wins, four draws and four losses, including a 0-0 draw against Newcastle Jets in a home game it took to Wollongong.
Sydney central defender Matthew Jurman says that while the team can't just assume the unbeaten away run will continue, there was no reason it couldn't aim at getting all three points in Wellington.
"Our away form has been very good," Jurman said. "It doesn't mean we're going to win the rest of our away games, but if we look at it one game at a time and concentrate hard on Sunday then we can get the three points. Everybody needs to be confident that we can get the result.
"We wish our home form was just as good, but it's not that way at the moment, so we're just going to have to try to turn that around against Adelaide. But it's a big game against Wellington first and we need to make sure we're on our game for 90 minutes.
"Wellington is the team to beat at the moment. They're going really well and they're finding goal-scorers all over the place. We'll have to work hard against a very good team that is playing very well."
Jurman said he had no problem with the tough schedule over the closing five rounds, saying the heavy competition would be great preparation for the finals and that if Sydney did finish in the top two it would know it deserved to.
Since the current finals format was introduced, no team that finished lower than the top two has won a grand final. The top two teams get the first week of the finals off and then play a home game to try to qualify for the decider.
"I don't like to look too far ahead, but the table doesn't lie and if you're playing teams that are mostly in the top five and going for top spot then our destiny is in our hands if we can get the points," Jurman said. "If we pick up three points every week it could get us to top spot.
"'Arnie' has told us not to worry about the results, just focus on our performance and we'll see where we finish at the end of the season.
"We've got some long trips ahead of us, but it's not something we haven't handled well before. We have to prepare and look after our bodies over the next few weeks to make sure we're all right and able to handle all the travel.
"It's exciting times, to be honest, coming to the end of the season. I'm sure the boys are pumped up for these games, because if opportunities like this don't excite you, nothing will."
Jurman said last week's surprise loss to Melbourne City had not resulted in Arnold putting the accent on anything different at training this week.
"It's been the same this week, like any other week," Jurman said. "We lost a game, but the world isn't going to end because of that, so it's a normal week and we're just concentrating on the next game and getting the three points out of that."
