It was a night that was all about Liverpool, but Brendan Rodgers has hailed Brisbane Roar for their “top-level technical game” in Friday night’s glamour friendly.
The visiting English side won 2-1 in front of nearly 50,000 fans at Suncorp Stadium, with new recruit James Milner’s second-half strike completing Liverpool’s come-from-behind victory.
But the Roar looked on par with the rusty Reds for most of the night and only fell away in the second-half, when a mass of substitutions changed the game and Brisbane’s legs started to give way.
Rodgers saw enough in the first half to believe the Roar are well on the right track after John Aloisi’s fist game in charge.
“It’s a real mark of Australian football, the improvements that they’re making,” Rodgers said.
“The structure you have in the federation… You see a top level technical game from your team.
“It’s a good idea… 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1, that will also breed a quality player able play that quality football.”
There were only a spattering of orange shirts in the crowd as Brisbane, just for a night, were made to feel like outsiders at their own ground.
Stands at Lang Park were renamed for those at Anfield, while you would be forgiven for thinking you were there had you closed your eyes during the pre-match rendition of You’ll Never Walk Alone.
Unperturbed by the hype, the Roar took a shock lead 17 minutes in, when Brandon Borrello spotted Dimi Petratos loose in the box with plenty of space.
Petratos jinked past Martin Skrtel and then unleashed from near the penalty spot, his shot flashing past Liverpool gloveman Simon Mignolet.
But it didn’t last long – nine minutes later, it was all square, as Adam Lallana showcased the gulf between the English top flight and the A-League with just a swivel of his hips.
All too easily, Lallana threw off the advances Roar defender Jack Hingert, and then found the top corner with a perfectly-weighted curling shot on goal.
Milner completed the comeback with his goal 15 minutes from time.
Surrounded by Brisbane defenders, Milner kept his cool, slid the ball through the legs of acting Roar captain Jade North and then scuffed a shot that found a deflection on its way past goalkeeper Jamie Young, who was one of Brisbane’s best.
The result might have knocked the stuffing out of a gallant, stubborn Roar side, but Aloisi said there was plenty to take out of the night.
“There were periods there where we played from one side to another and we opened up the Liverpool team,” Aloisi said.
“That’s the confidence they need to take out of it – if we can do it against a European side like that, one of the best sides in the EPL, we should be able to do it against any A-League side.”
Waz
Guest
Fuss - possibly but owning the Brisbane Roar won't necessarily increase brand exposure. For the cost of that LFC could run football clinics in a dozen countries each year for a decade or something as dramatic. Man City don't own Melb City for example, they're owned by the CFG backed by billions in Oil dollars so even there it's not about the brand.
conchie
Roar Rookie
Hundreds of people were doing it, it was a complete borefest.
Ian
Guest
did you ask the person who threw it if it was because of boredom? it was you wasn't it? you paid a mint to watch Roma vs Madrid........hahaha.
Waz
Guest
Excellent. As long as something kept you amused the rest of us can stop worrying :)
conchie
Roar Rookie
What's not to like about soccer, the paper plane throwing at the recent MCG match because of boredom was 1st class.
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
It was reported in The Age last week that the FFA receives a flat fee of $250,000 for every match played by foreign clubs in Australia. 10 matches will be played during the 2015 off-season, so that's an easy $2.5m for AUS football. Expenses? $0 Risk? Zero, Zilch, Nada. Money for jam. I urge all Eurosnobs & ALeague haters to work hard during the next 12 months to pay for their ICC 2016 tickets in Melbourne.
BigAl
Guest
Shouldn't that read - '...Galactica Big Business thanks you for your cash...' ?
Waz
Guest
Stevo - it was a pretty decent game to be honest, frustrating that Man City couldn't seem to hit the target with any level of accuracy mind you. But from Mel City's perspective, considering you are still a team in progress with 2 or 3 key signings still to come, you can take great heart from this game. All Mauk can do is put his foot where he expects the ball to go which he did but as you say the ball had other plans. Great goal to win it though, I haven't seen the official attendance but is was 80% full so I'd guess 22-23,000 which is decent.
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
You realise the matches are practice matches? In which other sport, do you get 80k people paying an average of $100 for tickets to watch a practice match? Quite frankly if you turn up, or tune in, to watch a football practice match and you expect it to be exciting your are exposing yourself as a Grade 1 Football Illiterate. But, AUS Football thanks you for your cash & hope you keep buying tickets to our meaningless practice matches.
Waz
Guest
Conchie/BigAl - So you don't like soccer I take it, you think the last few games have been boring, and you think Midfielder might be out with his stats (even though you miss the entire point of his post wrt to soccer holding a No. 2 place in certain TV markets). which is fine. I am just wondering why you bother to come on to a board clearly dedicated to soccer supporters with a view to putting the sport down? I know putting the boot into Association Football is popular with many, so much so that it could actually be called "Australia's sport" but if, as you infer soccer is so boring and TV stats so poor in comparison to other codes you've nothing to fear have you - you can just leave us alone, safe in the knowledge that soccer is doomed to failure sometime soon and we poor fools can just get on with loving our sport. What harm can come of that, none surely??
conchie
Roar Rookie
Mind you, after the last few games in OZ between the so called best clubs in the world, you will have to wake them up before you punish them. My god how mind numbingly boring it has been, no wonder the crowds have been booing.
conchie
Roar Rookie
you forgot to add 190k for the AFL on fox on friday night, of course you forgot !
conchie
Roar Rookie
yes soccer is smashing all before it, just ask midfielder, the day is coming when everyone who ever said soccer is a good cure for insomnia will be punished.
Waz
Guest
Agreed. Love Theo but surely you have to stick with the guy in form which is Young.
Waz
Guest
You're a "glass half full" kind of guy aren't you ;)
Stevo
Roar Rookie
Mauk butchered a chance but the pitch in the goal mouth didn't help. Novillo was the brightest of our players - has the potential to be a genuine excitement machine. Nasri's goal was all class. Could watch that all day TBH.
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
@BES I'm not surprised if 98% of the event watchers wore LFC merchandise. I wouldn't expect the event watchers to be Roar fans, or Aleague fans, or even committed football fans. They are people who want to watch an event & pick a team so they're part of the office conversations on Monday. As I said, the fact that TV ratings in Australia for UCL, EPL, LaLiga, SerieA are not high is a good indication of just how much those Liverpool, Chelsea, ManUtd, etc. "fans" in AUS watch their team. Maybe they're all getting up in the middle of the night & watching via unauthorised streaming sites. But, I'd be very surprised if this is the case.
BES
Guest
Has to be Young surely.
BES
Guest
The only problem with that analysis Fuss is how come 98% of the "event watches" were sporting Liverpool scarves and shirts?? There is nothing complicated or difficult about the conversion of these once or twice a year attendees and I have said it before, if Brisbane actually spent a cent or two on advertising the team and our games, we would get the attendees. There is no rocket science to it. As someone else mentioned above - there is NOTHING - NADA - ZERO - ZIP advertising done by Brisbane Roar in Brisbane. You quite simply would not know they existed if you weren't already a follower and it has been that way since the Bakrie Group got involved.
Waz
Guest
Why don't you try reading his post properly before posting a dumb-ass reply, that way he wouldn't need to define his definition of "smashed" as he made it perfectly clear in his post!!