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As much as the sky blue half of Sydney was yearning for a statement performance after the FFA Cup final loss, this simmering 1-1 draw that kept City at arm’s length will have to do for now.
In light of Sydney finishing the match with 10 men, it feels like an improvement against these opponents. Sydney showed true grit to equalise while numerically disadvantaged.
The match was taught, predictably heated and chippy, and was close to tearing open. Had Bobo called on his home country’s national dance, and samba’d his hip out of the way of Rhyan Grant’s goalbound shot, the complexion of the match might well have changed starkly.
Had Nicolás Colazo applied just a touch more curl on the ball from his free kick, it might have twanged off the post and into the goal, instead of across the line. Had Dean Bouzanis sprung with a tad more vigour, he might have saved Bobo’s penalty instead of watching it kiss his fingertips on the way into the net.
Football, as much as it appears to be staged around clashes between heaving titans, is so often decided by the precious minutiae that scuttle, barely seen, between the mighty thumps and this game had more of this than usual.
Melbourne City do seem to be able to draw something ugly out of Sydney, a frustration, a peevishness, a fraying of the temper.
Graham Arnold always wears a snarl on these occasions, and heaped heavy praise onto his team following the final whistle. But his team might have been more brutally punished – and this is discounting the red card Josh Brillante wholly earned – had the referee Kris Griffiths-Jones looked a little more closely at some of the off-the-ball skirmishes that sparked up.
Bobo left a trailing foot imprinted on Ivan Franjic’s kneecap, and Matt Simon took all of five minutes after coming on as a substitute before he drove a shoulder into the jaw of Michael Jakobsen. Bobo got away with a booking, but Simon went unpunished.
Perhaps this aggression is the natural inclination of a team that is made to press as furiously as Sydney. Alex Brosque harried the City defenders with an almost ravenous appetite, and Miloš Ninković was seen multiple times tracking back to make tackles deep in his own half.
City made 66 long passes in this match, and most of them were launched up-field by a beleaguered defence. None of Bouzanis’s passes that were bombed over the halfway line found a teammate.
Sydney were less submissive in the contest, and less blunt as an attacking force as a result. They began the match impressively, the City defence almost affronted by the intensity of the full field press.
Of course, Fernando Brandán, with his mullet twirling in the summer breeze, met Sydney with equal tenacity. He was a constant barb, probing and prodding the Sydney defence, and his goal was a superb perforation, prefaced by him charging, surrounded, right down the throat of the Sydney structure. He smashed the ball in, with reverse curve, from 20 metres, and tore away panting and fizzing, like some frenzied, sugar-mad toddler.
He relished playing the villain too, grinning as the boos from the crowd ensconced him, making a meal – it appears, regrettably, to be becoming a trend in the A-League – of Grant’s hand trailing down his face as he tumbled over the sideline. He was the man of the match.
So, as much as Sydney’s drive and huff got them this hardy point, they are yet to deliver a convincing performance against their nearest rivals.
City will certainly still feel they are the better footballing side, more capable of scoring and winning. The mental edge is still theirs.
But how important is having the proverbial wood over another team anyway? Because the A-League, unlike most other football league competitions, have a minor premier and a Grand Final winner, there is some merit to the concept.
A team can stumble consistently against a specific opponent in a points-based premiership, and still handily win the league. But meeting a bogey team in an elimination final, and carrying into in it all the associated mental baggage, is something else entirely.
Still, last season, Adelaide lost twice and won once against Western Sydney in the regular season, but beat them 3-1 in the Grand Final. The season before, the Melbourne Victory drew three times with Sydney FC in the regular season – with two of those draws ending 3-3 – but manhandled the same opponents 3-0 in the Grand Final. Obviously, it goes without saying that the heightened atmosphere, and the built-up fatigue, can affect these late-season matches too, in hugely unpredictable ways.
There are still two more league meetings between these teams to come, plus whatever finals encounters may eventuate. It’s probably safe to assume that City will, if not earlier, find a way to rival Sydney’s snapping intensity in the finals. Although this was a positive result for the Sky Blues, there are still questions lingering.