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As Leigh Broxham staged the opening skirmish with Shanghai SIPG’s Hulk, the diminutive Victory full back appeared to bounce off the Brazilian’s prodigious hindquarters, like a Kardashian child might off a Kardashian rump.
A sopping Shanghai evening saw the city – 24 million people strong – produce a patchy crowd, showing even when supply is plentiful, the demand to see an AFC Champions League group stage match seems fairly feeble in China too.
It was Broxham – not Hulk, rather surprisingly – who threatened to score first, racing onto a lofted through-ball, shooting high from an acute angle.
It took a minute or so for Hulk to match his direct rival for attempts, swinging his tree-trunk leg at a lofted corner, sending it squirting out in the direction of the sideline.
Shanghai have Elkeson and Oscar in their stable too, two other Brazilian stars on gargantuan wages. But Terry Antonis and James Troisi were just as crisp on the ball as the Brazilians in the opening 15 minutes. Rhys Williams, too, was passing with confidence, playing out from the back.
Melbourne, the memories of their wild 3-3 draw in the first group game, were no doubt keen to match that intensity again here, but perhaps leave out the defensive porousness that came with it against Ulsan.
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Leroy George shot narrowly wide, twisting and turning and shedding a marker on the right of the box. This came after Elkeson had turned a Hulk cross a foot or so wide of Lawrence Thomas’s left post. Odil Ahmedov, Shanghai’s Uzbek import, drew a stern save from Thomas, and a minute later Jason Geria was forced to make a desperate intervention to stop Oscar from shooting inside the box.
The see-saw was hinging back and forth, though largely in favour of the richly stocked home team. The Victory certainly couldn’t rely on scoring goals right after conceding goals again, but the idea that they might successfully rely on their defence was something almost as fanciful, especially considering their recent form.
Still, there were huge spaces available to the Victory on the counter, with Shanghai fairly static when out of possession. Precious few red-shirted men were rushing after second balls, or pressing with anything other than a vague sense of urgency. Antonis was allowed to receive the ball in the final third, turn into space, and shoot at Shanghai keeper Yan Junling, who gave Besart Berisha a whiff by fumbling the ball. He recovered it, but in the slick conditions, it was clear shooting from distance had been given a buff.
(AAP Image/George Salpigtidis)
Then Jason Geria was given a harsh lesson by the referee, when his dangling arm blocked an attempted cross. He was standing inside the box, so a penalty was immediately awarded. Of course, the question of deliberateness remained unanswerable, because as the ball was struck hard at Geria from all of a metre-and-a-half, there was literally a fraction of second in which he might have decided whether or not to leave his arm hanging in path of the cross.
With the Nikolai Topor-Stanley VAR controversy still ringing in the ears, the issue of an arm being in ‘an unnatural position’ wiggled into view. The FIFA rulebook, of course, makes no mention of the naturalness of arm position as something that holds any currency in the decision-making process, in fact it actually warns that “the position of the hand does not necessarily mean an infringement has occurred”, and yet the concept is still endlessly referenced with all this false authority.
But no, apparently the natural manner for defenders try and protect against a cross involves running with their hands pinned behind their backs like Michael Flatley, clearly petrified the ball might hit it.
In this case, Geria refused to river-dance, and so was guilty of not obeying a generally accepted, unwritten rule. But it was naive of him to do so, and the half-hearted Victory protests said as much. Hulk converted the penalty.
The Victory managed a brief reply, with Berisha and Leroy Geroge mustering a few fledgling sojourns into the Shanghai defensive third. But then, five minutes before halftime, Wu Lei met a swooping cross inside the box, diving athletically ahead of Geria to power the ball past Thomas.
The cross, set up by Hulk and Wang Senchao, was hit in a way that begged for exactly the kind of flying header Lei provided. 2-0 it was at the break, and there was a rising feeling that, if Melbourne were to come out in the second half in ravenous search for a goal, Oscar and the others would pick them off.
It took a little over a minute for Oscar to score a third. Geria, further soiling his own individual performance, cleared a deep cross straight to Oscar on the edge of the box. One neat touch inside, and the Brazilian pulled his shot back across his body, and it speared inside Thomas’s right-hand post.
Suddenly only a hoarse echo of the Aussie team’s early brightness remained, as the match strode threatening towards becoming an ordeal.
(AAP Image/Dean Lewins)
Troisi screwed a first time shot wide from the middle of the box, after nice work from Broxham and Kosta Barbarouses on the left. Geroge sent a corner spinning over the entire waiting pack. That flash of quality – a perfect touch under pressure, a confident connection on a shot, a nicely weighted pass – just wasn’t there for Melbourne, and when it was, Shanghai scrambled quickly enough to scupper the moment.
A perfect pass from Hulk sent Oscar dashing through, but his chipped shot flew wide, with Thomas beaten. Geria was removed for Thomas Deng, spared from the final 30 minutes of this special evening of torment. Berisha got into a heated exchange with Cai Huikang following a foul, likely as much a result of his frustration at being almost constantly offside as it was that particular incident.
Then Kevin Muscat’s men were awarded a penalty of their own, again for a handball. This time it was Yu Hai’s flailing arm, above his head, that was struck when contesting a header from a corner. Again the referee wasted no time pointing to the spot, and again deliberateness was firmly in question.
Berisha converted the penalty – which must have felt very good indeed – and it was 3-1. The Victory pushed, just barely alive in the match, but George and Deng were popping up as bright spots, dribbling and passing with ambition.
(AAP Image/Joe Castro)
Then Oscar, with a goal almost as splendid as the $92 million that brought him to Shanghai, sealed the win. Twisting away from Deng on the left wing, Oscar exchanged passes with a teammate, darted into the box, cut back, and curled a perfect shot inside the far post.
It was a wonderful goal, and summed up an evening where, both generally and in Oscar’s rather specific moments, Melbourne simply could not argue with a superior opponent. The visitors finished the match trudging around, steeped in exhausted resignation.
The Victory were never going to be able to stop Shanghai from scoring. They created enough in attack to be proud of, but this defeat means Muscat’s team have conceded three or more goals in three of their last five matches.
This cannot continue if they’re to finish this season, let alone this competition, with their dignity intact.