Wasteful Sydney FC exit from Asian Champions League

Australia will be without a representative in the Asian Champions League knockout stage for the third straight year.

Milos Ninikovic of Sydney FC controls possession ahead of Park Yong-woo of Ulsan Hyundai. Picture: Getty Images

Australia will be without a representative in the Asian Champions League knockout stage for the third straight year after Sydney FC fell 1-0 to Korean club Ulsan Hyundai in their penultimate group match in Ulsan last night.

Sydney still have one more match to go at home against Kawasaki Frontale on May 21 and could finish equal on six points with second-placed Shanghai SIPG, with whom they drew twice (3-3 in Sydney and 2-2 in China) in their two group matches.

However, the Kawasaki game will be of no consequence as the Chinese will advance to the next stage on the head-to-head rule by virtue of having scored more away goals.

Having gone into the ACL with three teams, the A-League now have zero representatives.

Newcastle Jets were eliminated in the qualifying stages while Melbourne Victory, who play Daegu FC tonight, have managed just a draw and three losses to date in their group and were eliminated after their draw with Guangzhou Evergrande last month.

Sydney will now have to regroup and prepare for Sunday’s semi-final against Melbourne Victory at Netstrata Jubilee Stadium. They are due to arrive home tomorrow morning and will have little time to prepare for the grand final qualifier.

Victory return on Friday morning and will have one day less to prepare. However, with nothing on the line, they have taken an understrength side to Korea, leaving their key players behind in Melbourne.

Despite playing some good football and creating a number of clear-cut chances, Sydney could not find the back of the net and were ultimately punished by the cheekiest of goals from Mikkel Diskerud.

The Norwegian-born American who goes by the name of Mix, provided the highlight of the game with his backheeled goal on 60 minutes that ultimately saw the Koreans earn all three points.

But, the Sky Blues only have themselves to blame for not getting something out of this game. They had a number of clear cut chances, notably Adrian Caceres shot from point blank range that he managed to smash into the face of the goalkeeper and substitute Danny De Silva, whose shot from close range was superbly saved.

Sydney went into the game without four key players with captain Alex’s Brosque, attacker Siem de Jong and defenders Rhyan Grant and Alex Wilkinson back home because of slight injuries. They were not going to be risked ahead of the game against Victory.

Still, coach Steve Corica came up with a solid starting XI. Paolo Retre shifted to right back in place of Grant, Jacob Tratt replaced Wilkinson, Caceres came in for de Jong and Reza Ghoochannejhad started for Brosque.

It was a fairly even first 45 minutes with both sides having decent chances to break the deadlock.

The Australians, as they have done so during the tournament to date, looked comfortable and lost nothing in comparison with their more fancied rivals.

Even with their inexperienced central defensive pairing of Tratt and Aaron Calver, they were solid at the back while in attack they created some problems for the home side, especially down the left side where Michael Zullo produced a couple of very decent crosses that had Ulsan scrambling.

Zullo’s first impact came on 16 minutes when his cross fell to Retre on the right, but the fullback rushed his effort and blazed over the bar.

The Koreans countered quickly just seconds later and probably had the best chance of the half when the usually reliable Junior was presented with a free header only to glance it just wide of the right post.

Seven minutes later Zullo again found space down the left and whipped in a cross, but Ghoochannejhad headed well over the bar.

Neither side could fashion a decent chance after that until Bokyung forced a superb save from goalkeeper Andrew Redmayne, who flung himself full stretch to the right to turn the curling, left footed effort wide.

Zullo was again involved in another Sydney chance just after the break when he sent a cross to the near post, but le Fondre couldn’t get it on goal.