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In a debut season which gets better by the week for the Western Sydney Wanderers, the A-League’s fairytale team is just win one away from capping off this most remarkable story.
Just when you think there is little left to say or write about the Wanderers, up pops Shinji Ono with a moment of sheer genius to seal a win that takes them into the grand final.
Little wonder they dubbed him Tensai.
When Ono sized up Michael Theo in the 71st minute and dinked the ball over him into the top corner, with the left peg, scoring one of the great A-League goals, it summed up everything that has been so special about the A-League this season. Particularly the experience that has been the Wanderers at Wanderland.
It was a picture perfect finish for a picture perfect moment, Ono doing things in his own time, at his own pace.
A packed-out Wanderland went nuts, and soon enough the 20,000 fans were up, backs turned to the action, shoulder’s linked, jumping up and down in a full stadium Poznan.
It was another symbolic moment in this most symbolic of seasons.
Sydney’s west, long considered the game’s heart, was linked in support of a club that didn’t exist just over 12 months ago.
Now they were part of a sea of red and black horizontal stripes, watching their team lift the Premiers Plate, greeting it with a rendition or three of “Champione”, preparing for grand final week.
About then, it sent me back seven months to the first Wanderers game at Parramatta Stadium, a pre-season clash against state league side Parramatta FC.
Played a month before the season started, there were just over 1000 fans on hand.
I remember having a chat to football manager John Tsatsimas, and the subject inevitably reverted to their cross town rivals, Sydney FC, who had taken the early momentum away from the new club with the signing of Alessandro Del Piero.
Tsatsimas suggested the Wanderers would focus on their own business.
At the time, Ono wasn’t even in the picture. Indeed, in all the early talk, the club was on the record saying they weren’t interested in a marquee.
Del Piero’s arrival and the attention it garnered changed that.
Now, as irony would have it, Ono has helped take the Wanderers to the home of their cross-town rivals for a highly anticipated grand final. And he’s the man that will be front-and-centre next Sunday.
Asked about the idea of winning the championship on enemy territory, Tony Popovic kept it simple, as always, pointing to the fact they had already won at the SFS this season, in the second Sydney derby.
It was typical Popovic, an acknowledgment of the latest achievement, with an eye towards the next challenge, whether that be the Central Coast Mariners or Melbourne Victory.
The challenge against the Brisbane Roar was certainly one Popovic and his men appeared to relish.
As he pointed out afterwards, his team has been playing in front of big crowds and great atmospheres, whether at home or away in places like the SFS, AAMI Park, Bluetongue and Hunter Stadium.
Popovic was making the point that his team wasn’t daunted here, and nor will it be next week.
Here they had to cope with a Roar team that came at them in the opening minutes and then for a 20 minute period at the beginning of the second half.
There’s no doubt the Roar have improved markedly under Mike Mulvey, and they showed it in periods here, always wanting to keep the ball, press high and win it, and move it quickly to try and expose the Wanderers before they set up.
But as much as they pushed, they couldn’t quite crack the red and black brick wall that has become the Wanderers defensive structure. No A-League team has scrambled as well.
The twin towers in Nikolai Topor-Stanley and Michael Beauchamp were supreme throughout, as they have been all season, never giving Besart Berisha a sniff.
In front of them, the team’s ironman, Mateo Poljak, was everywhere, particularly ensuring he was there to lend cover to Shannon Cole, who was having a tough night on the left side of defence.
While it wasn’t the most fluid of nights in attack against a Roar team that pressed well, Youssouf Hersi looked a threat throughout, always giving Shane Steffanuto a headache.
The Wanderers always know that if they remain compact in defence, they have the quality in the front third in Mark Bridge, Ono and Hersi to create chances at the other end, and so it proved here.
First it was Bridge making the space for a near post cross that Dino Kresinger finished with the class we’d come to expect from someone like Mark Viduka.
Clearly the big Croatian, a Wanderers cult hero since he won a penalty in the same box against the same opponent in December, wasn’t keen on this being his last game in red and black.
Unfortunately for his fellow import Hersi it was the last game of a terrific season after being shown a second yellow for a rather daft late challenge on Massimo Murdocca.
Always sprinting back at full intensity to press an opponent, Hersi’s effervescence caught up with him, and while Popovic won’t want to curb the workrate, Hersi will need to address the tackles on the off-season.
While he’ll take some replacing in the grand final, Popovic says he will give Hersi’s replacement the confidence to go out and produce.
Once again he has to find solutions for not only Hersi, but quite likely Jerome Polenz and Yianni Perkatis. This is on top of Iacopo La Rocca and Adam D’Apuzzo.
At least one piece of good news for Wanderers fans is that the manager expects Aaron Mooy to be back.
Irrespective of who takes the pitch, there’s now doubt they will be in tune with what’s required in the Popovic system. A large part of the message might be about getting it to the magic feet of Ono.
With the remarkable red and black support base behind them, you just wonder if there is anything stopping Western Sydney creating magic for one more week.
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