Gutsy – A.P.I.A Leichhardt 1-2 Sydney Olympic

After a difficult and at times confusing week for Sydney Olympic and the Supporters, a good amount of travelling support managed to make their way to Leichhardt on Sunday Evening to watch the team take on old foes, APIA Leichhardt. Their reward was to see a good committed performance from the team, which saw us come away with the all-important 3 points.

It was a rugged start to the match with challenges flying in from both sides. We managed to settle down the quicker and within the first 10 minutes we had taken the lead. Radovan Pavicevic delivered a lovely cross to Yu Kuboki who leaped highest to head the ball passed the APIA goalkeeper and into the back of the net to get us off to a good start. Slowly APIA got themselves into the match, but apart from one great chance they had, which was wonderfully saved by Paul Henderson, they really did not have that many clear cut chances throughout the first-half, our staunch defending foiled most of their attacking raids. This saw the frustration levels of the APIA players rise, causing them to get involved in several scuffles with Sydney Olympic players and in doing so disrupting their focus and helping our cause. Around 10 minutes before the half-time break we doubled our lead, Max Burgess’ well directed corner found the head of Radovan Pavicevic who made no mistake and gave us a 2-0 lead, which remained the score-line at the half-time break.

The second-half was very much a physical affair as tempers threatened to boil over on several occasions throughout the half. We were much more pragmatic in the second-half looking to hold on to our 2-0 lead, while APIA came out hard in search of a quick goal. After failing to really test our goal, they finally did get the breakthrough with around 20 minutes to go as a shot of theirs was saved, before the rebound was put away making the score 2-1 and setting up an interesting last 20 minutes. APIA pushed hard to grab an equaliser and as a result left a lot of space for us to exploit on the counter-attack, we had a few chances to kill the game off with goal number 3 but we couldn’t manage to do it, leaving APIA with the belief that they could still get something from the match. They did have a couple of chances late on but the Sydney Olympic defence held firm to notch up an impressive and ultimately an important victory.

It was a gutsy victory by Sydney Olympic away against the top of the table APIA Leichhardt and a big challenge, a challenge we came through with flying colours. Hopefully this result can set up the rest of our year.

In terms of the Club Championship, the U20’s lost 5-3, and the U18’s went down 3-2, some improvement is needed with both these sides.

Many people have been asking about what happened with Jamie Monroy and why he decided to up and leave 7 rounds in after a pretty good start to the season, unfortunately I cannot definitively give you any answers for this. Instead all I can say is that everybody who had anything to do with him found him to be a very impressive individual and we wish him all the best back in Europe.

We now must get behind new coach Peter Zorbas, as we have a good squad of players this year and this season shouldn’t be thrown away as we definitely have the capabilities to be there at the business end of the season.

A quick re-cap of our Round 5 FFA Cup Qualifier which took place last Wednesday Night down in Picton against the Picton Rangers. Radovan Pavicevic put away 2 penalties and Jason Madonis scored the other one in quite a tough encounter.

The opposition were obviously right up for the contest and put in a good shift themselves, as well as some over-zealous challenges, but we were good enough to get the job done with a 3-0 win, and progress to the next round.

In Round 6 FFA Cup Qualifying we will play the winner of Parramatta FC and Southern & Ettalong United.

Our next match in the League is next Sunday Afternoon, May 7, the Big Derby against Sydney United, at Belmore Sports Ground, Kick-Off is at 3pm.