Duty, not entertainment

Sydney FC 1 Auckland FC 1

A Tuesday night early 7pm kick off presented a raft of challenges for the Sydney FC faithful, but the lure of high-flying Auckland FC to Sydney’s suburban masterpiece, Leichhardt Oval, gave this crunch A-League fixture a sense of anticipation. The home side shoehorned in its two new luxury signings, Piero Quispe and Corey Hollman dropping out, and there was an inclusion for Alexander Popovic for the lame Marcel Tisserand. Expectation was low following Saturday’s dreadful performance, and a physical encounter saw the teams locked together until Popovic headed home deftly at the far post for what looked like a late winner. There was one final twist though, and somehow Sydney let their visitors equalise with the last attack of the game to send the fans home frustrated after a tense battle.

We were looking okay for time, driving in from the North Western suburbs after work, until we hit a crash at Gladesville bridge, but it was cleared quickly, the majority of the traffic in the opposite direction at this time of the day. After making the quick decision to drive past the Orange Grove to try the leisure centre car park, we were out of luck, a big barrier stretching across Mary Street, and we were redirected around the stadium where there was so much going on – rugby training, kids fitness, swimming lessons, and by the time we got down to Le Montage where the cars were parked all over the place it was clear that the quick decision was the wrong one. So, back to the Orange Grove where we snared a car spot and walked past a few Auckland shirts outside the pub and past the Auckland FC team bus to the back entrance, the one behind the hill that’s only open for men’s games.

The 7pm start was clearly a struggle, not many in the stadium with 15 minutes to kick off, and the hill was fairly deserted. I left Michelle in the sun to head round to the Cove, nicely shaded from the blinding sunshine, taking up a spot on the ‘Cove Heights lawn’ behind the small pack of eager fans in the benches. The acoustics here are pretty poor, so the chanting seemed quiet, although I was told from the hill that it was good. We Are Sydney greeted the players, our Cove drummer still in his work clothes, and the teams took their positions, Sydney FC having won the toin coss to shoot away from the Cove in the first half. The pace of the chant was deliberately slow, as if to teach those miscreants a lesson for singing it too quick in recent weeks. Changes tonight to the team; finally Marcel Tisserand was declared unfit after his immobile performances to be replaced by Popovic and, pedictably, Apostolos Stamatelopoulos and Ahmet Arslan coming in for their starting debuts. The stadium announcer nailed Stama’s name.

The SFC chant was up next, very early in proceedings like Saturday, the drumming so fast that smoke coming from the drum would not have been a surprise. Sydney had started well, Tiago Quintal somehow getting past his man to fire in a shot, beaten away by the Auckland keeper up the far end. The visitors were probably the better team in the first half, Harrison Devenish-Meares caught in no man’s land as a long ball held up, and he was relieved that the striker only got a little bit on the lob and was able to trot back to retrieve the ball. Alex Grant was shepherded off the ball as Auckland went close again, the referee starting to irk the home fans. This was exacerbated when a visiting player went down after his attack was foiled, Sydney set off on the counter attack but the official pulled play up, no suggestion of a head injury at all. Victor Campuzano went close after a defensive blunder, but this was a bruising game, Sydney players constantly let known that they were in for a fight in the aerial challenges.

When Stama was upended up the far end, it looked a nailed-on penalty but the referee waved it away, and as the half drew to a close, former Coastie Dan Hall fired in a searing shot that HDM tipped over, the ref annoying the away team by not giving enough time to take the corner. A half that didn’t look like producing a goal from a flowing move, it seemed like a long throw or a corner from the visitors would be the most obvious source of an agonising one-goal defeat at the break.

When night falls on Leichhardt Oval, it is magical. The sunset is stunning over the main stand, the unfolding spectacle under lights in the dark has a mystique about it that regular visitors recognise and appreciate. The noise levels tend to go up in the dark too. Sydney were asleep at the start of the second half and should have conceded, a unmarked player right in front missing the ball altogether. Sydney were on top for large parts of the second half, Stama heading just wide of the post in front of the Cove and then having a fierce near-post shot blocked. Campuzano was playing as though his time on the field was limited, bundled off the ball at one point before racing back to execute a slide tackle on precisely no one. When Rhyan Grant headed agonisingly past the post, the majorty of the stadium with their heads in teir hands, this started to look like a goalless draw.

But oh no, when Sydney had numbers up from a corner, sub Piero Quispe jinked inside and lifted a superb ball onto the head of Popovic, who deflected the ball expertly inside the post and set off an incredible celebration sequence. The Cove going mad, the subs on the field, what a moment. With maximum 10 minutes left, this was looking good, but the VAR check went on and on, a possible offside waved away eventually after an uneasy delay of maybe three minutes. The game continued at the same pace, Auckland were pressing, corners were dealt with, long throws were cleared, but when their pressure ended with a wayward shot that went way over the bar, the fans were confident of the three points. Late sub Al Hassan Toure broke from one of the desperate Auckland attacks, he had the pace, but lost any sort of composure, trying a ridiculous shot from miles out instead of maintaining possession and running into the corner. The killer blow came when a long punt up the other end was lifted in, a close-range header was saved well by HDM, and as the ball bounced, it looked as though the Auckland player had got there first to poke the ball home, the fans behind the goal going crazy. On replay, not that the big screen at the far end is big enough to really see it, it was an own goal, Jordan Courtney-Pekins having cleaed the ball right into Alex Grant’s arse and in. Disgust in the Cove, no surprise and no anger.

The only thing that could possibly save us was VAR but there was nothing wrong with the goal, and the final whistle quickly followed, after a half chance for either team to win it. The players came to applaud the Cove, who were not in an applauding mood, and the same feeling from Saturday enveloped the fans, one of apathy, acceptance and disappointment at yet another home failure.

We were let out of the same back entrance into the dark streets. The traffic coming out of Leichhardt was a shocker, the police making it hard for everyone, but we were going against it, and after a pit stop on the other side of Leichhardt, we were home by 10:30pm, as if the game had never happened.

This was a bruising game, and Sydney FC nearly came away with a surprise win. The manner of the equaliser was typical of a team out of form and lacking in confidence, and some of the football in the second half was lifted straight from Saturday’s game- urgency was lacking, the midfield squashing so high with the ball that there was no room to fashion anything of note, almost paradoxically back to the late Corica era when we’d move the ball side to side with lovely passing but no end product. Was this entertaining? I guess for the neutral it may have been. For the nailed-on die-hard Sydney FC fan this felt like a duty, like some of those early kick-offs at Kogarah in Covid times, racing to a game that was on too early and suffering through ninety minutes where a 1-0 defeat seemed like the most likely outcome. We go again on Saturday, this time back at the cabbage patch of Allianz Stadium for Pride Round, and expectations remain at an all time low. Forza Sydney FC.