The Big Blue review

37 minutes….
37 minutes was how long it took for the wonderful, energetic crowd of 18,784 on Saturday night watching Sydney FC take on Melbourne Victory to witness the craziest half of football of their lives. 5 goals, 1 red card, 1 deflected free kick, 1 penalty, terrific attacking play, and atrocious defending, the Big Blue lived up to its name.
In the opening minutes, Melbourne Victory actually dominated possession, pressing Sydney off the ball and controlling the tempo of the game, but being such a big game, it didn’t take long for a crazy moment to occur. The goal started from a goal kick with Vedran Janjetovic hoofing the ball, the ball then being headed backwards by a Melbourne Victory defender but for some strange reason Nathan Coe judged the situation wrong and got outside of his box in an attempt to clear the bouncing ball, but Sydney FC Richard Garcia got to the ball first beating the floundering keeper and tucked it into the back corner scoring the first goal inside 4 minutes, his first goal for the Skyblues.
Melbourne dominated most of the possession again afterwards, getting a few chances to equalise. Minutes later former Socceroo Brett Emerton missed a sitter from close range after a wonderfully curled corner from Sydney FC marquee Alessandro Del Piero found its way to Emerton’s head, but Brett mistimed it.
What happened afterwards was an insane 10 or so minutes that included goals and 1 red card. The first goal coming from a freak accidental touch off Sydney FC defender Seb Ryall’s teeth/nose somehow rebounding off and finding the back of the net. 2-0 in 15 minutes and all of a sudden the stadium was absolutely buzzing after having not seen their side score for the last 3 games. Within 90 seconds though Archie Thompson – Melbourne Victory’s favourite son and Sydney FC’s arch-nemesis, scored Melbourne’s first after youngster Connor Pain was able to beat Tiago on the left wing easily, the Brazilian no match for Pain’s pace as he darted around him, and put in a nice and easy cross for Archie Thompson to get in the end of, making it 2-1 within 17 minutes.
Then came Marc Warren’s sending off, a God send in disguise really, he got beaten by pace by Conner Pain and then stupidly try to pull his arm in an attempt to stop him, just outside the box, last defender and stopping a clear goal-scoring opportunity, easy decision for the referee, straight red card. Troisi luckily got a deflection from the free kick and Vedran diving the wrong way making it 2-2.
The next major incident was when Melbourne Victory marquee defender, Contreras, tried to jump over Sydney FC marquee Del Piero as if he was taking a “speckie” in the other sport that is played next door in the Sydney Cricket Ground. Was also an easy decision to give a penalty to Sydney FC, which Delps cooly tucked into the bottom left corner. 3-2 and only roughly 40 minutes gone.
The 2nd half was not as entertaining or crazy as the 1st half, but just as absorbing and enthralling, Farina risked putting on no subs at all despite being a man down coming into the 2nd half, opting to play a 4-1-2-1-1 with Ali Abbas at Left Back, Nick Carle as holding midfielder protecting the back four, Brett Emerton and Matt Thompson as the right midfielder and left midfielder out wide and finally playing Del Piero behind Garcia.
It was a great tactical battle as Melbourne tried to push for a 3rd goal. Sydney were being pushed deeper and deeper as the game went on but were able to hold on in the end, in the last 10 or so minutes of the game Melbourne had a flurry of chances making sure the first Big Blue of the season will be one to remember, corner after corner, shot after shot, save after save, all until the very last second of the game where Pedj Bojic made what was the game winning slide tackle and will probably be the tackle of the season.
Final score Sydney FC 3 – Melbourne Victory 2

 

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