Saturday, January 10, 2009

No Swash, Just Buckling Dec 15 2008

AROUND the 89th minute of Mariners Sydney FC game with the score at 1-1 I looked up into the dark Gosford sky, clouds covered most of the stars but I saw a stubborn single star.

All alone it shone bright, then I looked down on to the pitch and Iain Fyfe clattered into Dylan Mcallister in the Penalty Box. See you later star and goodbye three points.

As the Oracle predicted it was a shit first half performance with my main man Gan unwittingly kicking the ball towards his own goal, Bolton the keeper did well to save low and to his left, only for Dylan McAllister to follow through and score: 1-0 to the Mariners.

The strong away Cove support, almost three bays full, were stunned into silence.

Sydney won a penalty when a beautiful 50 metre ball by Supergan found the motoring Aloisi and Danny Vukovic got confused again and shoulder charged Aloisi in the box.

The most replayed penalty in Australian sporting history has put Aloisi in two minds when taking spot kicks and he missed, luckily a Mariners player encroached and Aloisi had another chance and this time scored.

Sydney should have got a second penalty when Shannon "why don’t they let me take free kicks from close range any more?" Cole got clattered into the penalty box and got incorrectly called for off side; fans around me were receiving texts from Sydney with news that the penalty should have stood and the linesman had erred big time.

Sydney lost the momentum after that decision and looked like they would be content with a draw; there should be no time to be content on the football field though; so for the remainder of the game Sydney had few chances and spent the rest of the half grafting and grinding instead of twisting and turning.

I don’t like graft, with my football, it goes hand in hand with incompetence. Graft is a result of mis-placed passes, no communication, bad positioning and lack of confidence.

Kossie talks a good tough game, but in reality as a coach, he has a conservative nature. With the score at 1-1 and 10 minutes to go he opted for the draw instead of the win when he took off one of our main attacking weapons Alex Brosque and replaced him with a defender.

But Sydney still contrived to loose with an extra defender on the pitch, Ian Fyfe with a brain snap tried to do a salsa dance on top of Dylan McAllister and gave away a penalty.

Corica missed a late header which could have made it a draw but it wasn’t to be.

At the after-match press conference Kossie said: "We battled away and had a legitimate penalty disallowed. That's the second time this year a late penalty has killed us off. The Mariners are a good side and deserve some credit. We battled away. You've got to show character and we did that."

Say battle one more time, I dare you, I double dare you!

With the way the team is playing and injuries Sydney FC has, I don’t see Sydney playing any better until some players like Adam Casey, Brendon Santalab and Terry McFlynn come back from injury; dare I say it I would even be happy to see Simon Colisimo.

Perhaps in the mean time replacing some experience with jugendgeist (spirit of youth) then Kossie could be the swashbuckling coach he always wanted to be instead of just buckling.

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