Sydney Olympic 4-0 Hakoah Sydney City-East

Sydney Olympic seems to have gotten itself out of the funk it was in, backing up last weekend’s tough 2-1 victory over Sydney United by smashing Hakoah Sydney City-East 4-0 in what was a dominant display on Sunday Evening. We controlled the match from start to finish and if it wasn’t for Hakoah’s goalkeeper it could well have been more than 4.

We started off confidently and looked switch-on right from the get-go. We had a couple of early raids on Hakoah’s goal inside the first 10 minutes but no major chances were created from any of them. Hakoah had a good chance to open the scoring also early on, but their player fluffed his lines and missed the chance. We continued our good play and good start to the match and 15 minutes into the first-half we had our reward, Jinya An put in a dangerous looking cross which was met by William Angel on his left foot, who came in from his Right-Wing to put the ball into the back of the net via a deflection. Only a couple minutes later we had our second goal in what was almost an identical goal to our first, another dangerous cross from Jinya An was once again met by William Angel, but this time no deflection was needed as he buried it passed the Hakoah goalkeeper to make it 2-0. For the rest of the first-half we dominated the play – possession and chances – we had another great chance from a free-kick late in the first-half but it was well saved. We could not further add to our 2-0 lead and so we headed for the half-time break looking comfortable.

At the start of the second-half it looked like we just continued on from where we left off in the first-half. We quickly got back into our groove and had a couple of chances to extend our lead, but both were well saved by Hakoah’s goalkeeper, the first from a header and the second from a quick free-kick which we took looking to catch them out. We were really bossing the game and passing it around at will, Hakoah could not get anywhere near us. But so long as the score stayed at 2-0 it kept Hakoah in the game and as the old saying goes – “2-0 is the most dangerous score-line in football” – and as it turned out Hakoah had a good chance from distance with a shot but it was kept out thanks to a great save from Paul Henderson. Despite this chance we continued to press and push for more goals and we would add to the score-line in the last 5 minutes. We scored our third from a well worked goal which saw Yianni Spyrakis have a simple tap-in and our fourth came from a nice pass from Radovan Pavicevic into the box which was met by William Angel this time on his right foot to complete his hat-trick. Right on cue the referee blew his whistle for full-time as we ran out 4-0 winners.

This was one of our better performances in 2017, we looked like world beaters out there and deserved our big victory. Sydney Olympic playing so well might have something do with being at Lambert Park, as we always seem to play well there and the stats back that up. Since the start of 2011 we have played at the venue 20 times for 14 wins, 2 draws and 4 losses.

A lot of the supporters have been calling for William Angel to be played in a more attacking position and this move was justified as he scored 3 goals and always looked dangerous on Sunday. It was also good to see Tass Mourdoukoutas back from Europe, as well as Darcy Burgess back in the starting XI for a second week in a row.

Everyone is playing well though as we head into the business end of the season and it is the right time of the year to be peaking. In terms of Finals Football, the results from the weekend mean we are all but assured of our spot in the Top 5 unless something ridiculous happens in the final round. But a Top 3 finish is now out of our reach.

For the Club Championship it was another 2 losses, the U20’s lost 4-0 and the U18’s suffered a 3-1 loss.

Next week is the last match of the regular season, we are away at the Sutherland Sharks on Sunday August 13, at Seymour Shaw Park in Miranda, Kick-Off is at 3pm.

Get out there and support Sydney Olympic.