Australian A-League: Sydney FC and Melbourne Victory play a draw
An injury time goal from new Finnish forward Juho Makela saved a point for Sydney FC against Melbourne victory this Saturday at the Sydney Football Stadium.
The 1-1 draw has kept Sydney’s slim chances of making it to the finals alive. The new Finnish striker side-footed a strike in the 93rd minute after http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Danny-c10193 Allsop had initially given the visiting Melbourne side some hope of defending their A-League
title.
Melbourne Victory is now just 6 points behind the top 6 position and they have to win their remaining 5 games in order to give themselves a chance of winning the A-League crown.
Sydney went in to this game on the back of 2 consecutive victories and were looking to take advantage of the Melbourne side that was missing three vital players. http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Archie-Thompson-c6447, the two Victory strikers missed the game due to injury while
captain http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Kevin-Muscat-c20756 was suspended for this game.
The first 10 minutes of the game were explosive for the home side as they created many chances to take the lead. In the 29th minute, Sung-Hwan Byun kicked a bullet shot that was saved by Victory goalie http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Michael-Petkovic-c25361.
The keeper was once again called into action to deny Bruno Cazarine whose header was going towards the goal.
18-year-old Petratos signed a new 2-year deal with Sydney FC a few days ago and he was in the thick of the action and became a constant and annoying presence for the visiting team’s defense.
Hirofumi Moriyasu almost put the visitors infront but his beautifully taken kick hit the base of the goal-post in the 44th minute.
After the interval, the visitors showed better performance and put pressure on the Sydney defense by making full use of their midfield dominance. The pressure paid-off for the visitors when Allsopp met a clean pass from Carlos Hernandez and coolly slotted
the ball in the net beyond the reach of Sydney keeper http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Liam-Reddy-c22239.
The visiting side, rejuvenated by taking the lead pushed on to increase the lead as Hernandez and Marvin Anglo both came close to scoring a goal each.
http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Shannon-Cole-c33256 and Nicky Carle, the marquee signing tested the Melbourne goalkeeper from long range.
Young Petratos should have leveled the score in the 80th minute but he squandered a good one-on-one opportunity.
However, with the match looking done and dusted, Makela, top scorer of the Finnish league this season, scored in the dying moments of the game infront of the home fans.
Vitezslav Lavicka, coach of Sydney FC was happy with a point but was disappointed at his team’s lack of being wasteful infront of goal.
"We played a great first half, with lots of effort and good quality, we created chances," Lavicka said.
"But we just didn't score the goals” said Lavicka whose future at the club is still uncertain.
He admitted that his side started the 2nd half very shakily and deserved to go a goal down.
Ernie Merrick, head coach of Melbourne Victory admitted that the hosts were dominant in the first half but praised Hernandez, an import from http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Costa-Rica-c2877 for being a crucial part in the build-up to the second half goal.
He labeled the game a tale of two halves and said that he was very much satisfied with his team’s performance.
The result leaves Sydney FC in the 3rd lace place in the league with just 25 points while http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Melbourne-Victory-c39899 are now in 5th place with 33 points.
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