A-League finals: Adelaide travel to Sky Blues

On Saturday night the A-League will be treated to a match fit for a grand final. Yet instead we shall see two of Australia’s brightest sides battle it out for the right to contest a championship.

On the one hand we have Sydney FC, boasting the A-League’s best marksman, rejuvenated following the Asian Cup break, and gaining a reputation for winning tight goal-infested encounters.

Challenging them are this season’s early pacesetters and inaugural FFA Cup winners, Adelaide United, who have brought a new style of football to the A-League but have struggled for consistency.

The pre-game barbs have been flowing back and forth, and there will be plenty of pride on the line for managers Josep Gombau and Graham Arnold.

Gombau has crushed his doubters from last season ruthlessly, finally producing the football he always claimed he could deliver. Arnold has recovered from criticism in the first half of the season, when his team was decimated by injuries and limping towards the January breather.

Since the Asian Cup break Sydney FC have undoubtedly been the best team in the country. They have dropped just eight points from a possible 39 and scored 37 goals at a rate of almost three per match.

They have kept their fair share of clean sheets – nine – but are also experts at winning the goal-fest thrillers. They have been involved in seven close games where four or more goals were scored, and five times they have come out on top. The other two ended in 3-3 draws.

There is no better side than Sydney FC in the art of a late winner or equaliser.

The Sky Blues have claimed an extra 19 points throughout the season as a result of scoring goals after the 74th minute, you just cannot tie them down when they are on a roll.

So how does Adelaide stop this goalscoring machine?

First of all, keeping Sydney FC scoreless is not out of the question. Whereas Adelaide has scored fewer goals than Sydney, they have only failed to find the net on three occasions. Sydney have been kept goalless eight times.

Just as much as they are a potent threat in the final third, they have been just as prone to drawing blanks.

And on the back of their tendency to dig deep in the later minutes to fashion point-savers, Arnold’s charges also tend to bottle it when they struggle in the first half of matches.

The Sky Blues have failed to score in the first half of a match on 12 occasions. Only twice have they managed to win from such a position.

Frustrate Sydney for the opening 45 minutes and you are statistically on your way to victory. It is a promising omen for Adelaide, who have managed to keep their semi-final opponents goalless in all three A-League meetings this season, finishing with a 4-0 aggregate.

The most recent match, a 1-0 win to the Reds in early April, might have been solely down to the heroics of goalkeeper Eugene Galekovic, yet it is slightly unnerving for Sydney’s attack that they are yet to penetrate the Adelaide defence.

The first half will likely be the defining period in this match. If Adelaide keep Sydney scoreless then they will be confident of finding their way to the grand final.

But if Sydney grab an early goal?

In the 15 games where Sydney have scored in the first half, they have gone on to win 12 times, drawing the other three. Quite astonishing.

It does not matter whether they were winning, losing or drawing heading into the break, every time Sydney FC have scored in the first 45 minutes they have never lost.

Saturday’s semi-final pits the A-League’s second best offence against the second best defence, and so far the latter has come out on top. Yet can Gombau really conjure up a fourth consecutive clean sheet?

Adelaide is also not just about defence and it would be unfair to suggest that their sole goal will be to thwart the Sydney attacking machine. The Reds possess their own attacking weapons, with 14 different goalscorers and six players that have scored four or more representing a real team effort in the final third.

Pablo Sanchez sits at the top with eight goals, but the main threat will come from Sergio Cirio and Marcelo Carrusca, who have slotted seven apiece.

Adelaide do not rely on one single source for their goals. Bruce Djite, as the side’s main target man, has therefore come in for criticism for his paltry total of six. Yet it should not worry Adelaide fans, and most certainly will not worry Gombau.

Adelaide play as a free-flowing unit, and any one of their starting XI is capable of scoring the decisive goal.

Sydney, meanwhile, have often relied on Marc Janko to propel them towards glory this season. The lanky Austrian has slotted 16 goals, which represents a 31 per cent share of Sydney’s total of 52.

Their reliance on Janko to find the net is apparent, but this team is no one-trick pony. Sydney’s star striker has either failed to score or has not appeared in the club’s last five regular season games, and his teammates have still managed to find the net 12 times.

It helps to have that instinctive goalscorer who can find the net, and that could be where Sydney find an edge over Adelaide in the semi-final. Individuals are often the ones that make all the difference in knockout games, and Janko’s knack for goals outweighs Cirio and Carrusca’s creativity any day.

So can Gombau conjure up another clean sheet, and with it his fifth victory over Sydney FC this season? Or will Arnold find a way through Adelaide’s defence and pummel the Reds into submission with his potent strike force?

This promises to be a thrilling encounter and both sides are more than worthy of a grand final appearance. Neither team has made the final game of an A-League season since 2010, so at least one set of supporters will be able to banish past heartache come Sunday morning.