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07Apr19
Ten-Man Adelaide Overcome Insipid Wellington
by Jeremy Ruane
Despite playing an entire half of football with ten men, Adelaide United made the most of an insipid Wellington Phoenix first half-hour's display to overpower the visitors 3-1 in front of 8,343 fans at Coopers Stadium and draw level with them on the table as the race for a home play-off spot in the Hyundai A-League intensifies.
A Wellington win in this match would have left them odds on to finish fourth and secure home advantage in next month's quarter-final play-off against the fifth-placed team, either Adelaide or Melbourne City.
But Mark Rudan's team never even looked the part during the first thirty minutes, so much so that when they went 3-0 down not long before half-time, the coach stormed off down the dressing room tunnel in a seething rage, spouting foul language aplenty as he did so.
He had good reason. Because his team couldn't have won a chook raffle in the opening phase of the match, so poorly did they perform. Adelaide weren't great by any means - they were guilty of conceding far too many niggly fouls for this writer's taste - but they were made to look like world-beaters by the Wellington eggbeaters which initially graced the ground.
It took Adelaide just ten minutes to open their account for the evening, Michael Marroune unchallenged in heading home a Craig Goodwin corner from six yards and shatter the air of cageyness in which the contest had been played thus far.
Seven minutes later, United doubled their lead when Marrone launched the ball downfield and picked out Goodwin. His cross from the byline found its way to Ben Halloran, whose deft back-heel allowed the marauding Scott Galloway to surge past him and a defender before whipping in a cross which Apostolos Stamatelopoulos thrashed home at the near post, again from six yards.
Wellington looked bewildered - their defending had been shambolic to this point, and things nearly got worse in the 23rd minute when Goodwin, having got away with fouling Michal Kopczynski on the left curled in a cross just beyond Halloran, who was rising to meet it on the far post.
Galloway picked up the pieces and fired in a cross looking for Stamatelopoulos, but Ryan Lowry headed this to safety, only for Halloran to latch onto the ball and pick out Goodwin on the far post with a cross which invited the striker to execute a spectacular volleyed effort which flew across the face of goal.
The visitors finally offered some resistance in the 33rd minute, when Roy Krishna caught Michael Jakobsen in possession and played the ball through to David Williams, who spurned the chance to shoot, instead opting to spread play wide to Lowry, whose cross was headed wide of the far post by Liberato Cacace.
Cacace's pursuit of a lost cause five minutes later showed that not all was lost for Wellington, and while Jakobsen cleared the danger as he looked to pull the back to Krishna, it only got as far as Sarpreet Singh, whose through ball for Krishna forced Paul Izzo to dash off his line and save at the striker's feet.
United's 'keeper saved in more routine fashion from Cacace soon afterwards, while the perfectly placed figure of Galloway headed off the line in the 43rd minute as Antony Golec's header, from a pinpoint Singh corner, flew towards the target.
The next two minutes of play were, quite frankly, mad! Firstly, there was Wellington's defensive effort, which was a more than passable impersonation of men behaving like statues as Isaias Sanchez and Goodwin combined to present a diving header opportunity on a plate for Stamatelopoulos, the ball being fumbled over the line by Filip Kurto as the home team extended their lead to 3-0.
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Then there were the actions of Adelaide's two-goal marksman himself. Straight from the kick-off, he launched into Mandi Sosa with a studs-up tackle after the midfielder had played the ball.
Referee Jonathan Barreiro initially gave a yellow card, but this merited a stronger hue, and following the intervention of the Video Assistant Referee, the referee changed his decision, and out came the red card.
Rudan's fury at his side's defensive efforts seconds earlier was matched if not bettered by coach Marco Kurz's reaction to Stamatelopoulos losing the plot in such needlessly spectacular fashion, given it left Adelaide to face the second half with just ten men.
Wellington looked to make their numerical advantage pay early on, with Singh seeing his curling effort pawed away by Izzo in the 47th minute. But it was the ten men who continued to make the bulk of the running during the next ten minutes, Isaias going close with a free-kick before Golec's splendidly timed tackle thwarted Goodwin in the area, after he had picked the pocket of Kopczynski.
After this, however, the visitors held sway, although they didn't really create a great deal. Singh lashed a twenty-yarder past the post after Max Burgess - outstanding off the bench - and Krishna combined to set him up, while a sublime pass from Burgess on the hour presented fellow substitute Cillian Sheridan with a glorious opportunity to get the visitors on the board.
With the defence split by the pass, the burly Irishman bore down on goal and wasted little time in rounding Izzo, only to find himself forced wide of the target and with no clear shot on goal. So he laid the ball back to Williams … and they're still looking for the ball outside the stadium!
Cacace and Burgess then combined to present Sheridan with a headed chance which he directed over the bar, before the Irishman finally broke his goalscoring drought in the 73rd minute.
Cacace's short corner to Williams saw him play the ball back to Sosa, who was fortunate to escape injury from the game-defining incident just before half-time. The midfielder thundered a shot through a crowded goalmouth which crashed against the post, with the rebounding inviting Sheridan to turn the ball into an untended net - 3-1.
Now they had a sniff, Wellington wanted more, but accuracy was their downfall. Williams lashed a snapshot over the bar, while Sheridan's chipped attempt drifted across the face of goal in the 79th minute.
Five minutes later, Izzo turned a Williams shot round the post, while the offside flag came to Adelaide's rescue from the resulting corner, Krishna the guilty party, thus stifling Kopczynski's goal celebrations, the defender thinking he'd pulled it back to 3-2.
Wellington's night in front of goal was best summed up in the 87th minute, when a goalbound shot from Williams struck Sheridan square amidships and rebounded to safety.
As things panned out, it was their last chance, and Adelaide's ten men held on for a 3-1 win which draws them level on points with their opponents, who retain fourth place by virtue of their superior goal difference advantage, with three rounds remaining before the final placings are determined.
Adelaide: Izzo; Galloway, Marrone, Jakobsen, Kitto; Isaias, Boland (Lia, 80), Konstandopoulos (Blackwood, 67); Halloran, Stamatelopoulos (sent off, 45), Goodwin (Thomassen, 90)
Wellington: Kurto; Kopczynski, Durante (Burgess, 48), Golec (booked, 60); Lowry (booked, 19) (Sheridan, 57), Rufer (booked, 39) (Stensness, 80), Sosa, Cacace; Krishna, Singh, Williams
Referee: Jonathan Barreiro
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