From the opening throes, Western Sydney sensed a vulnerability in the team across from them. Brisbane have self-tenderised in the last few days, laying blow after blow on their own finals preparations, with the Thomas Broich issue a major distraction.
The Roar hierarchy have retreated into a weak defensive position over the German’s regrettable shafting, and it was mirrored by the team, who meekly retreated back to the margins of their own penalty area as soon as the game began.
Western Sydney, the league’s second most accurate passers, and a bunch who – often to their detriment – indulge gleefully in passing the ball in tight, advanced areas, relished the situation. Finding very little resistance, Kearyn Baccus and Terry Antonis waltzed up the park, with Joe Caletti and Thomas Kristensen backing up in front of them.
Mitch Nichols, Nico Martinez, and Jumpei Kusukami – as they are want to do – revolved and whirred around, switching positions, eluding markers, searching for fleeting pockets of space.
With Baccus and Antonis allowed the freedom and time, they found their attackers, and many of the chances Western Sydney had in the first half came from passes pinged in from the deeper midfielders to Martinez or Kusukami, who then touched the ball back slightly for teammates to shoot.
On one occasion, Martinez simply meandered up to the edge of the box, performed a simple feigned shot, and darted closer, narrowly shooting wide. This was a sequence that enjoyed a breathy expanse of space around, caused by the Roar’s tentativeness, and these damaging holes lingered throughout the opening half.
Brisbane, having haplessly retreated, limbs dangling and heads spinning, were seen hacking wild clearances to no one in particular. Kristensen and Caletti – and, occasionally, Broich and Holman – were pushed so deep, they were unable to aid in linking the attack to the rest of the team. Jamie Maclaren and Brandon Borrello were only rarely involved; Maclaren’s best moments came almost entirely from his own above-and-beyond exertions, chasing hopeful balls, beating players to the ball he had no right to pip.
Nothing came easily, or fluently, for Brisbane ahead of the halfway line. Western Sydney had the better of the possession, and all the chances, and crucially, the opening goal. A penalty, with Avraam Papadopoulos catching a fraction of Brendan Santalab’s toe, as the Wanderers beat him to the ball in the box. Antonis tucked it away, and – as soft as the decision was – it was a wholly deserved lead.
The halftime break came, and the match-call boffins were asking whether Broich should be substituted. The lingering feeling was that the Wanderers should have scored two first half goals. Brisbane had to be roused over the break, otherwise a home defeat was surely coming.
And then, as if brought out of a dandy’s malaise with a whiff of smelling salts, Brisbane emerged and scored an equaliser within ten minutes of the second half commencing. A counter-attack, where the defence had retreated as they had in the first half, but then, crucially, offered a stern repulse and a vigorous riposte, saw Broich running with flanking teammates.
He passed perfectly – he hadn’t, it hardly needs confirming, been substituted – to Borrello, and his shot ricocheted off the post, right to Maclaren’s feet. He couldn’t miss. Suddenly Brisbane were alive, winning the midfield battles they hadn’t even contested in the first half. Kristensen was passing ambitiously, and with accuracy, and Borrello and Broich were knitted coherently into proceedings, no longer isolated on the flanks.
Borrello struck a man standing on the line, with the whole goal to aim at. Holman whacked an effort from distance high and wide. Janjetovic turned a Borrello volley onto the crossbar, the ball bouncing twice on the woodwork, an inspired save. It was Brisbane, revitalised, who had the better of the second half. But there was no goal to show for it, and Western Sydney survived.
Suncorp was bathed in a late downpour, and the game was slicked, with chances slipping out at both ends. At this point, there had been 42 shots taken in total by both teams. But regulation time elapsed with the deadlock in place, and so it was towards an extra time period that the poncho’d home crowd looked.
The frenetic fervour careered into the extra time period, with pinball midfield play and sudden desperate moments drawing gasps. Jamie Young, only barely with turf beneath stud after coming on for the injured Michael Theo, had to make a snap save from Santalab within seconds. Western Sydney had fanned down some of the Brisbane momentum, until substitute Jashua Sotirio, wrestling away the dunces cap and jamming it squarely on his own empty scone, managed to pick up his second yellow card. He had been on the pitch for 16 minutes. Tony Popovic’s focus, at that moment, turned to forcing a penalty shootout.
John Aloisi brought on Nicholas D’Agostino, to try and steal the night in the second half of extra time. The match curled up symmetrically, with the Wanderers now, wounded by Satirio’s idiocy, retreating meekly to their own penalty area. Oar hit a free kick down Janjetovic’s throat. Broich had a penalty appeal turned down.
The looming spectre of the shootout loured the horizon, casting the last lethargic bursts into an even more desperate light. The final whistle split the tension, confirming it. The teams huddled up, with the rain still coursing over cramped muscles and muddy jerseys. This had been a marathon, testing the spirit as well as the sinew.
Borrello, calm and steely, slotted the first spot kick away, pointing at the Den as he turned back to his team. Antonis clipped a cheeky panenka in to level things; Antonis was brilliant on the night. D’Agostino, a teenager, slammed his home with a stunted run-up, youthful confidence flowing through him.
Dimas, the Wanderers’ late substitute, was next, and he slid his narrowly past Jamie Young’s grasping paw. Maclaren, who missed a penalty last week – losing him the Golden Boot outright – twanged his unerringly into the left-side netting, a perfect penalty. Martinez strolled up, and lifted his penalty high into the right-hand side. This was six straight makes.
Luke DeVere, the centre half, was relieved to see Janjetovic guess the wrong way. Seven straight now. Brendan Hamill, also a sub, scored his, side-footing slightly to the right. Eight makes; the tension was unbearable. Kristensen bashed his off the underside of the crossbar and in, as a flutter rumbled around Suncorp.
Robbie Cornthwaite slipped his square into the top-right corner, the best of the night. Ten straight, and Oar with a low curling shot made it 11 straight. When would this end? The sudden death period, where any Wanderer miss would lose them the tie, had begun some time ago.
Then Jumpei Kusukami sauntered up, a little too casually, and weakly poked his shot far too close to Young, who barely needed to dive to save it. Had Young guessed the wrong way, it would have been peachy, but he didn’t, and the shot wasn’t good enough to mitigate that.
Brisbane, eventually, recovered from their pallid start, and held their nerve when it mattered. Better finishing on the night might have seen a repeat of last season’s 5-4 finals result between these two clubs, such were the frequency of chances and the generosity of the defending. There will be no Sydney Derby in the finals. The Roar play the Victory next week.
Arto
Guest
Hard to argue With the example you mention here, Waz, but I put it to you that the VAR would be just as useful as you see it being a farce in other situations - case in point; Real Madrid's win over Bayern Munich last week. I put it to you that it would be Bayern against Atletico in the SF rather than Real given the horrendous amount of wrong decisions that were made DESPITE there being goal-line officials as you advocate! 2 goals allowed despite Ronaldo being offside, Vidal's 2nd YC that never was, Casemiro not even receiving a single card for any of his horror challenges... So it's clear that some people like the introductions of VARs, and other don't. And most definitely we'll still have reasons to debate and argue over what happened in the games the other night. So for now I'll leave you and everyone else with this little snippet of last weeks disgrace at the Bernabeu: https://www.facebook.com/fcbcentralvideo/videos/1887633148146643/
Arto
Guest
Wrong! The VAR is used for the following: - The VAR will conduct checks on four issues only: goals, penalty decisions, red card incidents and mistaken identity. - Reviews and overturned decisions will only occur when the VAR spots a 'clear error' in the play and the referee accepts that decision. The penalty was awarded as the ref thought Santalab had been fouled in the Box. The VAR reviewed the footage and determined there was not enough evidence to suggest the ref was clearly wrong - that you claim he was is your opinion and I'll wager there are enough fans who think the opposite to make the matter moot. Additionally, that you also think Santalab should have been sent off prior to that is also a matter of opinion and the VAR deemed there to not be enough evidence to overturn any of the ref's decisions on Santalabs actions. For the record, I can't stand Santalab and his thug-like tactics on the Field and have no love for either Roar or Wanderers.
Arto
Guest
Seriously, how on Earth can you make those assertions: "It’s not working and the regulations on where it can and can’t be used are just daft."???? Actually it has worked very well so far and the regulations on when to use it are completely clear - it's not here to fix every mistake, it's to change clearly wrong decisions. Waste of time - it took 89 Seconds for the penalty decision SFC was awarded against Wellington to be made - that's like the average stoppage for an injury! Frustrating for fans might be your opinion, but I'd wager those fans are like yourself and not in the know about how it's meant to be used. 5th, 6th or even 11 assistan referees can still make mistakes and whilst you conveniently overlook it, each of those assistant referees have their own area of responsibility, so in the end it's the main referee's call regardless of what happens.
Waz
Guest
Mate, seriously, I like a lot of what you say but this isn't one of those times. Go and talk to a football coach ....
AZ_RBB
Guest
Taken me a couple days to get over it but no doubt that Friday's result was fair. It was a brilliant exhibition of A-League football and two teams who were playing some of their best football. It's rare you see a game that keeps you on the edge of your seat for 120mins and then followed up by a top class penalty shootout. Considering we finished 6pts behind, I didn't expect for us to win but I was pleased to put a big fight and played our role in a wonderful spectacle. A Sydney Derby semi would have been special but I am happy to wait. Hope we play well in these last 2 Champs League games. Best of luck to Brisbane going ahead. How many semi finals is that now in the last 9/10 seasons?
Nemesis
Guest
So, he went the right way 4 times and was successful once. I'll have to do the stats, but maybe if he just stayed upright in the middle he'd have saved more penalties. It's just a lottery. Sure people can find all sorts of reasons AFTER the event, but I'll only pay attention to such analysis if I hear BEFORE the penalty kick the analysis tell me which way the keeper is going to go. BRI scored 6 penalties. WSW scored 5. That's the reason Brisbane won.
Roarfan
Guest
Good lord, what match did you watch. I am aware that the Roar did not have a good first half, but they certainly were not as bad as you implied. The were a lot better in the second half and extra time and forced Jantjetovic to make some great saves and also had a few hit the 'alumiwork'. In my view, Popovic made a very poor tactical decision taking Santalab off. Whether you like it or not, they won the game and deserve proper recognition for that. Go Roar!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Waz
Guest
I'm not looking for an argument. I know defensive coaching and I know goalkeepers are coached in this. And I suspect 4 v 2 wasn't an accident. You can take your pick on which GK'ing technique is used when facing a penalty and which one is best, but I doubt many modern professional goalkeepers are left to guess or make a random decision. All sides will no doubt have a varuety of career history on opposing penalty takers, this includes analysis of the sequence looking for any patterns including the last 5 or so. It's also part of video analysis which at Roar Ross is responsible for. This goes out of the window in a penalty shoot out for the majority of the kickers (as often they will be taking their first penalty in a long while) in which case it's back solely to analytics: eyes, body, hip position, and favoured more recently, the angle of the non-kicking foot (Bozza talked about that last one after the show). In fact, I know some English clubs have worked with their County Cricket clubs on this; there are similar requirements for a batsman looking for the bowlers grip on the ball who, if he can see it at time of release or just prior to that, can anticipate the spin on the ball and (if they can think and react quick enough) make a decision on how to deal with the ball. The techniques required there can be coached and transferred to football - but some players are just much better at it than others because of the way their brain is wired. I have not heard of any Australian clubs going this far but many (including Roar) have a specialist goalkeeping coach and they do work on defending penalty kicks despite it being a one on one exercise. This topic even goes as far as leveraging the Müller-Lyer illusion which I suspect is what Young was doing when he unnecessarily "cleaned" his boots by banging them one one of the posts and he may even have gone on to stand slightly off centre. There's a whole library of research on this stuff. there's other factors in play such as reaction time, speed of dive, height/weight calculations but they're not generally unique to defending penalties. So Young went the right way 4 times out of six, his opponent two meaning young had double the chances janjetovic had to save the ball. Credit Young and his coaching team for that, it didn't happen by accident or lucky guessing. And this coaching doesn't just take place in the professional environment, Michael Theo runs a coaching school and he coaches some of the basic skills for facing penalties there. I've seen it. So it's a long answer but seriously, wheres the "looking for an argument" in all that? Just because it disagrees with your opinion doesn't mean it's looking for an argument.... it's an interesting topic and to ignore it is to reduce the work done prior to that penalty shoot out to the skill required in selecting your weekend lottery numbers.
Nemesis
Guest
Don't know if you believe this, or you're just looking for an argument. Either way, it's ridiculous. GK has 50% chance of choosing the right way. So, 2 out of 6 or 4 out of 6 is insignificant. Do 100 test and if it's still: Young chose the right side 66% Janjetovic only 33% then we can reach some intelligent conclusions. Unbelievable nonsense is used to analyse football.
Waz
Guest
"Both goalkeepers went the right way several times" .... Janjetovic went the right way 2 times out of 6, Young 4 times. One of the keepers is better at figuring out which way the kickers going than the other, that in the end was the difference. Interestingly neither keeper stayed still for any kick - from memory at least 4 went down the middle.
Cool and Cold
Guest
No, if Jamie Young moved to the right that ball went in for sure.
Lionheart
Guest
at least they ask
Waz
Guest
Agreed. So let's go back to the referees and end this farse. It's making things more controversial and not less, it's making it less fair not "more fair". It's stupid.
Realfootball
Guest
Who said the Neandertals had gone extinct?
Realfootball
Guest
Holman was injured.
Realfootball
Guest
Look, Steve, I respect your right to like watching AFL. I personally find it brainless, scrappy and boring, and the uniforms are ridiculous parodies of body builder costumes. Globally, the game is a tadpole in Lake Baikal, no matter what the viewing figures are in Australia. But I, unlike you, mind my own business and allow you lot to get on with your fandom on your own threads. How about you do the same?
TheVolley
Guest
Anything that is made by human being including the game have imperfections.
Bondy
Guest
What must also should be remembered from last night is, it's quite rare indeed to have a penalty shootout situation where after 10 penalties nobody has missed, quite rare ....
Nemesis
Guest
Not true at all. All other pens were very well taken. Some of the best executed penalties I've seen in Aleague. Both GKs went the right way several times but the penalties had such venom, or precision, they were unstoppable. Jumpei's penalty had the power of a bloke who'd been cramping for the last 30 mins. If you've ever experienced such fatigue, you'll know what I'm talking about. But, of course, you won't appreciate that sort of fatigue from playing Fifa Football video games.
Nemesis
Guest
We're going to get lots more Crash & Carry Ball fans on these discussions as the AFL season winds down now. 33% of teams are useless & they're now that they can't make the finals these incompetent teams have incentive to be even more useless so they can pick the next useless teenager before other useless teenagers.