Brisbane Roar could have no choice but to throw untried teenager Tomislav Bilic into the mix for Sunday’s A-League semi-final against Melbourne Victory as they sweat on the availability of back-up keeper Jamie Young.
The Roar are fuming after Young suffered a large cut to his arm during their 3-0 AFC Champions League defeat to Muangthong United in Thailand on Wednesday night.
Young required 26 stitches to repair the damage after colliding with a rusty old hook on the post as he tracked Spanish striker Xisco’s opening goal in the first half.
Whether the 31-year-old, who came into the team after first-choice custodian Michael Theo injured his knee last week, will heal in time to face Victory remains to be seen.
If not, it appears 19-year-old Bilic will have to don the gloves in front of a hostile AAMI Park crowd.
Bilic has not played a single minute of A-League football and made his senior debut when he was sent on for Young in the 38th minute.
The Asian Football Confederation have been approached for comment on the incident involving Young, with the Roar due to file an official complaint.
The AFC will be expected to come down hard on the Thai Premier League champions if old or faulty equipment is found to be the cause of a serious injury.
The same goalmouth was also inspected at length by officials before the match who found the net was not properly secured, leading kick-off to be delayed by five minutes.
Brisbane Roar managing director Mark Kingsman tweeted: “How can this be allowed in our elite club competition?”
Coach John Aloisi rotated his squad heavily with Young, Thomas Broich, Nick D’Agostino and Luke DeVere the only starters for Brisbane who were involved in Friday’s elimination final win against Western Sydney.
Only D’Agostino played the full 90 minutes, which the Roar grew into after a meek start.
The entire squad – including the likes of Jamie Maclaren and Brett Holman who were left at home to rest – is due to be reunited on Thursday night, with the team flying direct to Melbourne from Thailand.
Cool N Cold
Guest
Play youth players in ACL away matches next year.
Dons83
Roar Rookie
Mattq, Have to agree. JA had said at a press conference after the WSW game that he ultimately was going to prioritise the A-league finals over the ACL. Having lost one Keeper late in the prelim final and being forced into a change to our other fit senior team keeper (having watched him warm up and warm down from my vantage point at Suncorp week in and week out I would say possibly the hardest working reserve Goalie in world football!), there has to be a question asked about the decision to play him in the ACL. Along with DeVere ( Arguably our best defender central or otherwise) playing 55 mins and Broich (a man who sat and watched the WSW penalty shoot out with ice packs on BOTH thighs!) going just over an hour, a trio of players who would be probably considered shoe ins for starting line up on Sunday. Was there really no one else? is there some sort of pre-requisite of first team senior players that need to be fielded for an ACL game. I am at a loss as to why these players travelled to Thailand let alone played. If you are down to one keeper, would you not think of playing the 19yr old Bilic from the start over there, to give him some game time and experience and if you have to send Jamie as a back up as worst case scenario? Is JA trying to wring the maximum out of Broich before he leaves at the end of the season? But then again, I am only a humble layman, JA is the manager, he must have factored in fielding a 36 year old for his 4th game in 14 days knowing that he'll be making it 5 in 19. Good luck to all 4 teams this weekend.
mattq
Guest
why didn't Aloisi rest Young given Theo is out? There was always a risk of injury.
MarkfromCroydon
Roar Pro
You'd have to be unlucky! Ah well, hopefully he gets up for the Victory game and we can put a few goals past him anyway.
Ken Spacey
Guest
Why do the refs brigade inspect anything if they ignore the problems? The tension between Senor Gambau and an Adelaide journo's son was exacerbated by the fact that Val's lad impugned by Josep had been badly injured in a goal frame collapse or similar. Out of curiosity I looked into this via Mr. Google and found that a number of deaths and hundreds of injuries ahd occurred across America alone. How much longer can we allow the HAL finals to clash with ACL? Reference to Brisbane official and elite competition works both ways.Your second choice keeper in a mainly second choice team was injured in an elite competition? Perhaps now my son will believe my tale of an Aussie national team losing 1-0 to PNG away and playing with a compound rubber schoolyard type ball.