At the time it was revealed that they would be playing Everton, however rumours floated around a pre-season tournament between Sydney FC, Blackburn Rovers, Rangers and Argentinian giants Boca Juniors.

On an overcast day over 14,153 showed up to the Football Stadium to watch local team Sydney FC take on Greek Super League giants AEK Athens.

The match started off quietly however as Blackburn had landed in Australia only 24 hours previously showed plenty of tiredness and weakness, and conceded in the 11th minute through USA international Maurice Edu.

A rush of blood from Kenny Miller however saw him fire the ball into the crossbar and out, but 3-minute's later Rangers themselves would concede a penalty down the other end of the park when David Dunn was brought down inside the box thanks to a late tackle.

The match started out evenly, both sides struggling to adjust to the muddy and slipper conditions, however it would be AEK Athens who adjusted the quickest, killing off Blackburn with a stunning double blow in 5 minutes, as Australian midfielder Nathan Burns set up Argentinian striker Ignacio Scocco brilliantly after flying past his man down the wing and sending in a cross, easily put away by Scocco to send AEK up 1–0.

As the conditions got worse, the match was nearly interrupted when several flood lights in the Sydney Football Stadium went out, however the game continued, and minutes later Burns set up his second assist allowing Nikos Liberopoulos his second of the tournament.

The best chance of the second half also went to Sydney with Senegalese triallist Ibrahima Iyane Thiam, who had scored in the match against AEK Athens, when he lifted a curling ball which looked to be going in, only to be denied by the fingertips of the goalkeeper.

There was a scare in the second half for Sydney FC when Swiss defender Stephan Keller limped off with what looked to be a hamstring injury, a major worry for manager Vitezslav Lavicka with 10 days until the kickoff of the A-League.

A-League Champions Sydney played out an entertaining 2–1 loss to English Premier League side Blackburn Rovers in the final game of the Sydney Festival of Football in which the Sydney-based team took to the pitch wearing black arm-bands, remembering the grandfather of defender Byun Sung-Hwan and grandmother of striker Mark Bridge, who both died during the week beginning 26 July 2010.

Sydney local Brett Emerton opened the scoring for Rovers in the 37th minute after gathering a Steven Nzonzi flick-on from a Gael Givet long ball.