Weekend Wrap - Round 11
It was nearly a complete case of déjà vu all over again this week in the Hyundai A-League with 3 matches going to the away team 1-0, only the Mariners swam against the stream and defeated the Melbourne Victory 2-1 at Bluetongue Stadium. The half way mark of 2007/08 season has not provided any clear indication of who the top 4 will be. At the mome
It was nearly a complete case of déjà vu all over again this week in the Hyundai A-League with 3 matches going to the away team 1-0, only the Mariners swam against the stream and defeated the Melbourne Victory 2-1 at Bluetongue Stadium. The half way mark of 2007/08 season has not provided any clear indication of who the top 4 will be. At the moment only 9 points sepearate first and seventh place. The business end of the season will be very interesting.
Game Wraps Round 11 of the Hyundai A-League season began at Hindmarsh Stadium with Adelaide United hosting Queensland Roar. With valuable premiership points on the line, both teams did not want to concede early goals. After a tight first half, the deadlock was broken just after the hour mark when Reinaldo volleyed from inside the box to give the Roar the lead. Try as they might to equalise, Adelaide just couldn-t seem to break through the Roar-s Craig Moore led-defence. Coincidentally, the last time that Adelaide United and Queensland Roar met at Hindmarsh the Roar won on that occasion too, 1-0. The Goalscorer Reinaldo. Freaky huh?
In the battle at the bottom end of the table, Wellington Phoenix made the second longest road trip in world domestic football to face the Perth Glory at Hindmarsh Stadium. This match was a real 6-pointer; for Wellington it meant staying in touching distance of the top 4, but for Perth it meant the same but with more feeling. Going into the match, Perth had not won in the Hyundai A-League since the 26th November 2006, a statistic that did not auger well with the Glory Fans. Wellington on the other hand had developed a nasty 4 game losing streak and was eager to amend that trend. The match began with the Glory applying the early pressure against the Phoenix with a number of opportunities going agonisingly close to breaching the visitor-s goal. Glen Moss in the Phoenix goal had a busy night denying the likes of Jamie Harnwell, James Robinson and Billy Celeski and due mainly to his exploits the match experienced a goal-less first half. Phoenix coach Ricki Herbert shook-up his squad prior to the match and whatever shaking he did to it again at half-time worked with Daniel opening the scoring in the 51st minute with a coolly placed finish from a Tim Brown assist. Glory pushed hard for the equaliser, but again Moss and his Wellingtonian defence held firm and at the final whistle the points were taken by the visitors. As an epilogue to the Glory-s performance, head coach Ron Smith was replaced by his assistant David Mitchell in a bid by the club to turn their fortunes around in enough time to make the finals.
Saturday night saw the blockbuster between the Newcastle Jets and Sydney FC at EnergyAustralia Stadium in Newcastle. Each one of the 16,433 spectators in attendance were strapped in for a roller-coaster ride considering meetings between these two teams in the past. Fortunately this match didn-t disappoint. The Jets started off the better with Mark Bridge, Joel Griffiths and Troy Hearfield proving to be a handful for the Sydney back four. The home team-s best chance came just before half time when a Mark Bridge shot was deflected by Tony Popovic only for the ball to bounce and spin away from the goal-line. After the break Sydney FC came out firing on all cylinders and were rewarded for this efforts in the 69th minute with a sublime goal from English import Michael Bridges following a corner that the Jets failed to clear. From there on, Sydney showed their class and held off their hosts to record their second consecutive win under their new coach John Kosmina.
With the three proceeding Round 11 matches ending in 1-0 wins to the away team, the canny punter would have easily put a motza on a Melbourne 1-0 Victory over the Mariners at Bluetongue Stadium on Sunday. With the Mariners in a mini-slump (1 win from the past 4 matches), Melbourne were eager to assert their championship ambitions in no uncertain terms. The Mariners were also keen to show that they are serious contenders for the Premiership title and used their trump card of John Aloisi to signal their intentions. This would be Aloisi-s first appearance in front of his new legion of fans, and those dressed in yellow wanted a goal from their new Qantas Socceroo striker to seal the deal. The match started slowly with neither team creating too many chances in the opening exchanges, which may have been mainly due to the heat & humidity in Gosford rather than the game plan of either team. The turning point occurred in the 20th minute when Mariners defender Andrew Clark was violently tackled by Joseph Keenan near the sideline. The effort earned Keenan a straight red-card from referee Mark Shield and the Victory had their backs to the wall. A tactical change from Ernie Merrick immediately after the send-off saw Leandro Love substituted by Daniel Vasilievski to sure up the Melbourne defence for which was going to be a long day at the office. To their credit, Melbourne dug deep and prevented the Mariners from exploiting their numerical advantage up to the half time break and at times threatened to pinch a goal on the break via their talismanic striker Archie Thompson.
The second half saw the Victory take the game to their more fancied hosts. With a man down, someone forget to tell the Victory that they were supposed to roll-over and after a number of near misses, the Victory took the lead in the 78th minute when Daniel Allsop set-up Carlos Hernandez to slot home into an empty net. It was at about this point that the punters who picked a 1-0 away win were about to count their winnings, but the result was far from confirmed when 5 minutes later Mariners substitute Matt Simon crossed in from the right to find John Aloisi in the penalty box. Alosi-s attempt was parried by Michael Theoklitos in the Victory goal, but Sasho Petrovski was on hand to clean-up the crumbs and give the Mariners the equaliser that they so dearly wanted. The drama didn-t stop there. Just when the Victory thought that they had done enough to hold out for a deserved draw, some clever skill from John Hutchinson just outside the Victory penalty area, set up fellow Mariners midfielder Tom Pondeljak to place his right footed shot through much traffic into the Victory goal to seal a come from behind win for the Mariners that will be remembered for some time.
Highlights & Lowlights The highlight is definitely the closeness of the competition with only 9 points between first and seventh….whilst the low point was the 3 red cards in the Central Coast Mariners v Melbourne Victory match. Goals Tally: 6 Card Count: 18 yellows - 3 red Attendance/Average: 45,597 / 11,399 Goal of the Week Although Tom Pondeljak-s winner for the Mariners was crucial, Michael Bridges- first ever goal for Sydney FC was not only crucial but also spectacular. Bridges curled his left-footed shot into the top left corner of Ante Covic-s goal with the Newcastle Jets custodian left only to admire the inch-perfect strike as it hit the back of the net. Bridges later stated that he knew that as soon as the ball left his boot it was going in, so that-s why he started his celebration before the ball crossed the line.
Player of the Week While he didn-t net the goal of the week, Tom Pondeljak was essentially the difference for the Mariners against the Victory. His hard work in the middle of the park provided great service to John Aloisi and Sasho Petrovski up front and he was rewarded for his diligence with a winning goal late in the game that could not have been scripted any better. It was fate that the Victorian born & bred attacking midfielder would rise to the occasion. Not always the most talked about player, Tom is consistent and is showing the form that has earned him Qantas Socceroo selection in the past. One to Watch Having lived in the shadows of Michael Theoklitos for the majority of the past two and half seasons, Eugene Galekovic now has an opportunity to strut his stuff on the Hyundai A-League stage for Adelaide United. His performance against Queensland Roar was outstanding considering that he only joined his new team-mates 2 days before the match. Had it not been for his reflex saves and domination of the penalty box, the result could have been much worse for the Reds.