Sydney FC have ended their Asian Champions League campaign in disappointing style, surrendering an early lead to go down 2-1 to Japan’s Kashima Antlers at Tokyo’s National Olympic Stadium.
The visitors had little to play for with Kashima and Korea’s Suwon Bluewings already locked in as the two teams to progress to the knockout stages of the competition from their group.
But Sydney started off well and grabbed the lead after 26 minutes when David Williams showed good speed on the counter to earn a corner, the midfielder then delivering for tall defender Matthew Jurman to leap above the pack and head home.
Sydney were on song in the early stages of the second half with some nice interplay between Williams and attacking weapon Nicky Carle but the home side lifted considerably as the game wore on.
A tiring Sydney defence was exposed in the 64th minute when Masahiko Inoha was left in space and crossed from the left to the far post where Ryan Grant was beaten to the header before Yuya Osako snapped a neat right foot volley past `keeper Liam Reddy to level the scores.
From there it looked like a question of when and the Antlers ensured full points came their way in the 84th minute.
A clumsy challenge from Sydney FC striker Bruno Cazarine handed Kashima a free kick, the Sky Blues’ wall failing miserably as Antlers captain Takuya Nozawa shot all the way along the turf to goal, securing the result.
Sydney’s sole scorer, the out-going Jurman who will join premiers Brisbane Roar next season, said despite the match being a dead rubber motivation was not lacking in the Sky Blues side.
“To be honest I think everyone wanted to go out on a high, so I don’t think motivation was an issue at all,” Jurman told AAP.
“And it was my last game for the club so I really would have loved to get a win.
“We all really wanted to get a result.”
Jurman said the team was fuelled by a desire to avenge the 3-0 drubbing it suffered at the hands of Kashima earlier in the group phase.
“When you lose to a team, you do want to try to beat them the next time,” he said.
“Kashima is a quality team and they did give us a lesson in front of our home crowd, so we wanted to come back tonight and get one back at them, but it just didn’t go our way.”
The win means Kashima will be sweating on the result of Group H’s final game between Suwon Bluewings and China’s Shanghai Shenhua later on Tuesday night, with top spot and a home game in the round of 16 at stake.
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