Sydney United 1-1 Sydney Olympic

The 116th meeting of Sydney Olympic and Sydney United has ended in a stalemate and should go down in my point of view, as one where we should have added victory number 54 to the wins column. Only some heroics from the opposition goalkeeper, saved them from another defeat.

The first-half can be characterised as a stalemate. We played well during it, kept the ball well, ran hard and looked enthusiastic, but neither us nor they, created any significant goal scoring chances during the first-half.

There were the usual niggling antics from them and they did do their best to try and hack Alejandro Sanchez out of the game. They tried that last season and the great man murdered them. I don’t think they understand that getting him pissed off, doesn’t serve them well.

This should have proven the case once again at the start of the second-half, as we had several absolute golden chances to take the lead. The opposition goalkeeper made a string of crucial saves, while another effort looked destined to go in, but for a last ditch goal-line clearance from them.

Alejandro, Harris Gaitatzis, Jack Stewart, Jinya An all had great chances to open the scoring, but we could not get that all-important goal.

Predictably and only a short time later, the opposition who had nothing up until that point in the second-half, went down the other end via a flukey long range pass and hit us with a sucker-punch of a goal.

In what was a good sign for Sydney Olympic, we did not drop our heads or mope around, instead we quickly went to work for an equaliser.

We did not have to wait long as only a couple minutes later we drew level. A nice pass found Alejandro free behind the defence, who then crossed into Radovan Pavicevic who was free inside the box and he did the rest to bring the score back to 1-1.

We had chances throughout the back end of the second-half to snatch a winner, but it was not to be and we had to settle for a 1-1 result.

If it wasn’t for the opposition goalkeeper having a good day, we would have collected another vital 3 points, but it was not to be.

Overall, we are playing well and starting to get into a groove. We have some vital must win matches over the next couple of weeks so hopefully, our form holds up and we can get the job done over the next little period.

For the Club Championship, the U18s were smashed 6-2 and in the U20s, we were also well beaten 3-0. Another not so great weekend.

We have discovered our opponents for Round 6 of FFA Cup Qualifying, we were drawn to play away against Nepean FC. The match will take place on Tuesday Night May 21, at Cook Park in St. Mary’s. Kick-Off is at 7.30pm.

Our next match is in the League and it is on this Friday Night May 17, at home at Belmore Sports Ground. In what is a must win match against Sydney FC’s NPL team. Kick-Off is at 8pm.

On the women’s side of things, they suffered a rare home loss, going down 2-0 to the Northern Tigers.