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Brisbane Roar stretched their unbeaten streak to 30 A-League matches and spoiled Brett Emerton’s official Sydney FC welcome with a 2-0 victory at the Sydney Football Stadium on Saturday night.
Goals from new recruit Besart Berisha and star playmaker Thomas Broich maintained the reigning champions’ perfect start to the new season after opening with a 1-0 win over Central Coast last week.
While 15,789 fans – Sydney’s biggest crowd in more than a season – turned out for Emerton’s first home match, the Socceroos star could do little to prevent the Sky Blues’ first loss in ten league matches.
The former Blackburn winger, who missed a penalty in last week’s scoreless draw away to Melbourne Victory, still looked some way off his best but put in a solid shift switching between the left and right flanks.
The Roar had dominated possession for much of the first half but were unable to create a clear-cut chance on goal until Berisha opened the scoring in the 43rd minute with his first A-League goal.
The Albanian international was on the spot for a poacher’s goal with a simple finish after Sydney goalkeeper Liam Reddy failed to keep hold of a driven shot from Erik Paartalu.
The Roar could have gone two up before the break but James Meyer slid his shot across the face of goal after a sublime through-ball from Broich.
While Sydney were ill-disciplined at times in the first half, with several clumsy challenges and needless offsides, they did string together some good passages of play.
Their best chance of the first half came from a neat one-two play between Nick Carle and teenage midfielder Terry Antonis, with the latter’s deft chip shot forcing a good save out of Michael Theoklitos.
Sydney wasted a good chance to hit back just after the halftime break with Carle breaking clear on goal, but he opted to round Theoklitos instead of pulling the trigger and ran out of options from a tight angle.
Reddy was called into action again in the 47th minute to deny a Mitch Nichols shot before the match descended into somewhat of a midfield arm-wrestle.
But Broich put the result beyond doubt in the 72nd minute with a good finish from the edge of the box after Berisha had cleverly dummied a ball cut back by substitute Kofi Danning.
Roar coach Ange Postecoglou was satisfied with the performance, despite feeling his side lacked a cutting edge in the front third, particularly in the first half.
“It was OK,” Postecoglou said.
“I thought Sydney worked pretty hard to try and contain us …
“As the game wore on we kind of started to really penetrate and punish them in the front third and eventually we kind of took over the game.”
And after a flawless start to the new campaign, the coach insisted the Roar were still capable of plenty of improvement.
“I think all along I’ve said I expect us to be better this year and I do and we’ve just started the season, so we will improve, there’s no doubt about it,” he said.
Sydney coach Vitezslav Lavicka was full of praise for the superior opposition but rued his side’s inability to convert chances into goals.
“It’s disappointing but I have to say the boys worked hard,” Lavicka said.
“They did make a good effort but just missing some product.”
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