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Nick Carle scored his first goal of the season as Sydney FC kept their ever-so-slim finals hopes alive with a 2-0 A-League victory over Perth Glory at nib Stadium on Saturday night.
Carle, playing just his 14th game of an injury-plagued campaign, scored in the ninth minute and Bruno Cazarine added a second after half-time to continue Sydney’s late season rally, which has netted three wins and two draws from their past five games.
Importantly, it means Sydney (29 points from 27 games) are now just four points adrift of sixth-placed Melbourne Heart.
Seventh-placed Wellington (32 points from 26 games), eighth-placed Newcastle (31 points from 25 games) and the Heart (33 points from 28 games) are still ahead of Sydney in the race for sixth spot and a place in the finals.
But with Sydney rounding out their season against all three of those teams, the Sky Blues are still a small chance to leapfrog their way into the post-season.
While Sydney are still daring to dream, Perth were left to lament another horrible performance in what was their 15th loss of the season.
Just 5576 fans turned, Glory’s poor form and a cyclone alert across the south-west of Western Australia contributing to the small crowd.
Carle and Cazarine combined for one of the team goals of the season to open the scoring, exchanging four crisp passes to unlock Perth’s defence before Carle’s looping header over Glory goalkeeper Tando Velaphi delivered the killer blow.
Sydney looked set to double the lead in the 28th minute when Dimitri Petratos steamed into the box, but a well-timed sliding tackle from Glory defender Josh Mitchell diffused the situation.
Perth’s best chance of the half fell to defender Scott Neville, but the 22-year-old couldn’t connect with a tricky volley at the far post after a neat cross from Adriano Pellegrino.
Sydney went 2-0 ahead in the 53rd minute, with Cazarine side-footing past Velaphi after a clever chip from Petratos.
Glory had two golden chances to claw their way back into the match, but Robbie Fowler blasted wide of the target with the goal at his mercy before Mile Sterjovski pushed his shot wide with only the ‘keeper to beat.
“It’s very disappointing. I think since I’ve been here that’s probably the worst I’ve seen us play in a long time,” Glory coach Ian Ferguson said.
“We have probably dismantled again what we built up 12 weeks ago. We are back to where we were.”
Sydney coach Vitezslav Lavicka was happy with how his team handled the long trip to Perth.
“I have to say it was a tough game for us tonight. We know the trip to Perth is difficult,” Lavicka said.
“We scored two goals, we keep a clean sheet … but they created a couple of dangerous situations in our box.”
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