There was a strange moment at around the ten-minute mark of this match when the ball was limply toed up the line, curling purposelessly along the painted grass before angling back inward, not the throw-in every player on the pitch had assumed it would become.
The scene was painted with a sort of stillness, a sense of resignation, as a Kashima player ambled over to collect it and bring the ball, almost unwillingly, back into the maw of the football match to which it is entirely central.
And with that, the other visceral senses of the match – the pounding drums of the home support, the offset chanting of the modest travelling supporters – returned as well, including the air of desperation Sydney were playing with.
This was, in fact, Australia’s most dominant football team staggering, heaving and bloody, into the last-chance saloon. Rarely have Sydney been in a position of such disadvantage over the last two years, and with a starting XI chopped up and pieced together, the situation was even more intensely steeped in this foreign feeling.
Michael Zullo, Brandon O’Neill and Jordi Buijs were all absent, for reasons – Buijs perhaps excepted – outside of Graham Arnold’s control. Bobo and Milos Ninkovic’s absences were rather more controllable. Regardless, the Sydney team presented here, with Paulo Retre at right-back, Chris Zuvela in central midfield, and Anthony Kalik in attack, was hardly the team we’ve become accustomed to seeing in the A-League.
(Jack Thomas/Getty Images)
But it was with a clear-eyed sense of urgency – if the not exactly the requisite quality – that this cobbled side began the game. Matt ‘the Axe’ Simon was in fine chopping form, charging around with intent, and Alex Brosque was similarly and typically tireless in pressing from the front.
Josh Brillante, the recently called-up Socceroo, was neatly marshalling the midfield, and Adrian Mierzejewski, charged almost solely with Sydney’s creative brief, was making himself central to his team’s attacking fluency.
Kashima, also fielding a weakened team, were matching Sydney’s energy with their own zest. Most of their first half-hour saw the home team work the ball into promising areas only to find their final ball hopelessly wanting. That is until Brillante, undoing almost all his good early work, did Kashima’s work for them, heading directly to Mu Kanazaki in the aftermath of an Antlers corner.
Perhaps obscured by the leaping Brosque in front of him, Brillante’s header was a perfect cross-goal set-up for the Kashima striker, who duly headed into an open net at the far post. Brillante dropped to his knees; it was an awful error almost comically executed.
(AAP Image/David Moir)
Sydney were winded. Again they were trailing in Asia. Is their downfall in Asia the result of a false sense of superiority fostered by their dominance in the A-League? How is it that this team – not just the best but the most consistent, the most steeled, the most unshakably confident – has appeared so unsure and flaccid in the Asian Champions League?
This is not a question, we now know, that Arnold will get another chance to answer with Sydney next season – a shame, really, though one suspects on this evidence the answer would be the same.
Sydney pushed to equalise, with Mierzejewski whipping in two free kicks from the wings and then a corner. None of them came to anything. Simon was still hustling, a flurry of limbs, but when he cut inside and shot on 40 minutes, the sight of his attempt careering 20 feet wide was a neat summary of where his shortcomings lie for all of his aggression and effort.
Kalik screwed an on-the-run shot wide after great work from Mierzejewski. Luke Wilkshire crossed from a promising position straight to keeper Hitoshi Sogahata. These were just half-chances, although they totalled more than Kashima had managed; but for the goal, and with the first half almost up, the home team hadn’t really threatened much at all.
(AAP Image/Brendan Esposito)
Could Sydney muster the kind of intensity and ambition that Melbourne Victory had managed earlier in the evening? Would the benchmark of the A-League be dumped out of the continental competition at the first opportunity?
Was this Arnold’s reluctance to rotate his squad in the league coming back to bite him? As much as the rip-snorting match against Newcastle on the weekend had, well, ripped and snorted, would it have been prudent to rest his stars knowing this crunch tie was coming up? Certainly it could not be said the team fielded here, such as it was, had had time this season to build chemistry.
Kashima came out and tried to kill the game in the opening throes of the second half. Aaron Calver, another new member of the starting XI, was forced to make last-second interventions twice in the first few minutes. Kashima were dissecting their opponents, passing with icy precision through Sydney’s defensive midfield, forging multiple crossing opportunities, all of which felt acutely perilous for Sydney.
After narrowly avoiding a yellow card for a scything foul, Matt Simon was involved in a clash of heads. Things were getting bedraggled. All of Sydney’s spells of possession saw them forced back into their own half by eager Kashima pressing.
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Then Simon, using every gnarled sinew and hardened length of bone, nodded Sydney back into parity. Wonderful work from Mierzejewski, the engine for a period of increased Sydney intensity, saw Wilkshire played through deep into the Kashima defensive third. His lofted cross was placed perfectly for Simon to attack from all of three yards out. He launched into and over his marker and forced the ball over the line.
Sydney had finally played to Simon’s strengths, in a very literal sense, and it had worked. Fifteen minutes remained.
Brosque slid a shot barely past the upright after a sudden incisive burst by Mierzejewski. It was now Kashima who were erring, misplacing passes and looking heavy-legged. Zuvela went down with cramp. Calver made some more crucial tackles. Sydney had fallen out of the last-chance saloon and were now standing, with a gritty tremor, in the middle of a main street shootout.
It was all or nothing now; a draw would not do. Charles Lokolingoy was brought on. Five minutes left.
Simon badly rushed a shot after being played in by Brillante. Kashima then fluffed a very decent chance to win it on the counter. But time was against Sydney and, eventually, it foiled them. Another draw for Sky Blues – in isolation a decent result away from home, but not enough in the context of their two other losses.
Their spirited equaliser in the second half means Sydney retain a mathematical chance of qualification dependent on other results. Sydney sorely missed Bobo and Ninkovic here and will need them – rested, ideally – in their next group match, away in Korea.
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