Spot on! Sydney fitting winners of a war of attrition

 
Tony Tannous Columnist

By , 21 Mar 2010 Tony Tannous is a Roar Expert

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Sydney FC players react after scoring the winning goal during the penalty shoot out at the 2010 A-League Grand Final at the Etihad Stadium in Melbourne, Saturday, Mar 20, 2010. Sydney won the game by penalty shoot out 4-2. AAP Image / Martin Philbey.

Given very little separated Sydney FC and Melbourne Victory throughout the regular and post seasons, it was perhaps fitting last night’s A-League championship decider went to penalties, and perhaps even more fitting it went to the team that finished first past the post.

A hundred and twenty minutes of attritional, confrontational, energy sapping football ultimately couldn’t find us a winner.

So it was off to the penalty spot, where Clint Bolton and Sung Hwan Byun added their names to the list of penalty spot heroes, while Kevin Muscat and Marvin Angulo joined the list of those to have suffered the penalty shootout curse.

Played on a patch-work of a pitch, which was nowhere near what was promised, let alone the standard required, the match failed to reach any dizzy heights.

But it was tense, tight and often spiteful, with would-be referees on both sides making Strebre Delovski’s job of controlling the match almost impossible.

The fact he managed to keep 22 players on the field is a credit to him.

In a mental and physical battle of will, neither side was prepared to give an inch, with every pass and loose ball contested with ferocity. At times x-rated, it was unrelenting.

Much of it seemed quite personal, particularly the battle between the captains.

Perhaps it was ironic then that the penalty spot, with no opportunity for a crunching challenge, was needed to separate the protagonists.

Something had to give, and the surprise is it was the A-League’s king of mental disintegration, as Steve Waugh would describe it, that failed at the penalty spot and handed the advantage to the visitors.

Sydney stood toe to toe with Kevin Muscat, refusing to yield to his attempts to sway proceedings, and came out on top.

Ultimately they did it the way they have done it all season, with discipline, hard work and purpose the hallmarks of their successful campaign.

The game-plan from Vitezslav Lavicka was clear when he choose Sebastian Ryall over Shannon Cole at right back.

Choosing the better defender made it obvious that Sydney would be playing the role of spoiler, a task they had performed so admirably in a 0-0 draw at Etihad before Christmas.

The plan was clear; keep things compact and narrow, defend deep, pressure the man on the ball by getting in his face or back, win the ball and look to spring forward and hurt Melbourne in transition, through the pace of Alex Brosque, Chris Payne and Mark Bridge.

Lavicka had spent much of the pre-season flogging his men, in the nicest way possible. It was this attention to detail that allowed Sydney to play such a consistent and concise pressing game, built on nullifying space to Melbourne’s ball-players.

Obviously the early injury to Archie Thompson helped, but Sydney still had to deal with the tricky feet and movement of substitute Angulo.

But it was the collective work on Carlos Hernandez, rarely giving him space to turn and construct, that ultimately lead to success.

If it wasn’t Stuart Musialik, the player that I felt deserved the Joe Marston medal, it was Stephan Keller, stepping out of his defensive line to place pressure on the Victory’s pivot.

When Hernandez drifted wide of central, to look for space, there were Ryall and Karol Kisel on one side, and Byun and Terry McFlynn on the other, double teaming him.

Melbourne couldn’t find space, let alone fluidity, and when Bridge’s goal came from a classic counter attack, it looked like the Lavicka game-plan had worked a treat.

For the next 15 or so minutes Brosque, Bridge and Payne were causing all sorts of problems for the Melbourne rearguard, and might have sealed the title had Payne taken a golden chance.

Melbourne looked shot, short of ideas, until another quickly taken Muscat set piece with just over ten minutes left shifted the momentum their way.

From then till full time it was the charge of the navy blue brigade as the Victory flashed home. The match had finally awoken, and the stands were rocking.

Somehow Sydney survived, and with the Victory’s momentum halted by the break ahead of extra time, the stalemate was back on during the additional 30 minutes.

Then came the drama from the penalty spot, for the first time in an A-League grand final, and it was Bolton, the man headed for the Melbourne Heart, who produced the decisive save from Angulo to shatter Melbourne hearts.

Join Tony on this post at 8.30pm tonight for a live post grand final debate. Leave your thoughts and questions here in the meantime, and be sure to bookmark this page and revisit tonight.

Follow Tony on Twitter @TonyTannousTRBA
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