Ask Sydney FC players Leena and Sham Khamis where their sporting talent came from and they can trace it exactly: their father, who played as a young man in Iraq before the sisters were born.

They report he has since hung up his boots.

Sham & Leena Khamis, sisters playing together for Sydney FC as the women's league enters finals season. Credit:Louise Kennerley

"Apparently he was a good player, but we'll never know," Leena laughs.

The talented pair, who both play on the club's W-League side, grew up in Minto, in south-west Sydney, as two of six siblings in a big Assyrian family.