A-League: Western Sydney Wanderers and Sydney FC draw 1-1
The race for the Premiers’ Plate is out of Sydney FC’s hands after they were held 1-1 by Western Sydney in the final Sydney derby of the season.
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Update: It’s been more than two years and counting since Western Sydney last beat the old enemy.
ANZ Stadium was the infamous scene of that derby win in February 2017, when Brendon Santalab blighted Sydney FC’s would-be ‘Invincibles’ season under Graham Arnold.
Last night, at the same ground, the Wanderers didn’t win. But the 1-1 draw did slip the knife in just deep enough.
Already out of finals contention, Markus Babbel’s men had little else to play for than pride and the pleasure of inflicting pain on their fiercest rival.
In that sense it was a night of great success, for Alex Baumjohann’s leveller to Alex Brosque’s opener takes the race for a second consecutive Premiers’ Plate out of Sydney’s hands.
On 49 points and five behind Perth, they must hope the Glory slip up against Newcastle tonight to ensure Thursday’s home match with Tony Popovic’s indefatigable squad means something more than a fight to stop Melbourne Victory beating them to second and a home final.
“I would have liked to have made up more ground on Perth to put a bit of pressure on in the last couple of games,” Corica said.
“They’ll be disappointed because we were winning most of the game 1-0 and we should have seen it out.
“It’s frustrating really. The boys kept going, they wanted to win by more.”
It offered hope too for the long-suffering Wanderers faithful of more positive things next season.
“The fans have been through a lot this season,” Babbel said.
“I think today they deserved a performance and I am very happy that the boys could bring a performance today.”
It was only thanks to Vedran Janjetovic that Adam Le Fondre didn’t deliver an injury-time sucker-punch from distance that would have taken all three points from a Wanderers outfit who were right in it until the death and engineered the more promising attacking chances against a Sydney team undoubtedly tired from their midweek Asian Champions League exertions against Shanghai SIPG.
But Brosque’s penchant for scoring against the red and black hasn’t waned with age, and the 35-year-old netted his sixth derby goal – a record – to mark what may be the final of this fixture he plays in his career.
He wasn’t about to waste it either, and when Anthony Caceres burst forward the bearded club captain was waiting.
One touch to throw off his defender and a second to jab a finish through the guts of their defence to catch Janjetovic off guard to mark the Wanderers’ 50th conceded goal of the season.
Not a moment after swinging his boot through Brosque was mouthing “ah f***” as he hurt his foot, though he soldiered on with a slight hobble throughout the remainder of the first half before being spared, his replacement Reza Ghoochannejhad unlucky himself not to score late.
It was intriguing that Baumjohann, granted a starting spot only by virtue of Kwame Yeboah’s 11th-hour injury, had the biggest say in his side’s fortunes, sticking a free-kick straight through the wall and just beyond Redmayne’s reach.
Mitchell Duke, conversely, was seemingly reluctant to reprise his how-to-do-the-splits celebration of a fortnight ago, spurning two clear chances in relatively quick succession, re-doubling his efforts just before the break to force Josh Brillante and then Andrew Redmayne into reflex clearances.
Oriol Riera, though, endured the most horrible miss, a glancing header he inexplicably diverted into the post.
By that time the spiteful affair was well and truly alive. Both teams had come to blows early and Raul Llorente, Keanu Baccus and Bruce Kamau all earned yellow cards within the space of three minutes.
WESTERN SYDNEY WANDERERS 1 (Alexander Baumjohann 57m) SYDNEY FC 1 (Alex Brosque 7m) at ANZStadium. Crowd: 21,984. Referee: Shaun Evans
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