It’s as if it was
sweet poetry for Sydney Olympic to play Hakoah Sydney City-East on Easter
Weekend. As many would know, there has never been any love lost between the 2
clubs going back nearly 60 years. Clashes between both clubs have been littered
with moments - glorious, disappointing and controversial. After nearly 30 years
apart, the rivalry resumed last Saturday Night.
We started the match off well and got into our groove rather quickly and we were looking threatening. But as their recent results have shown, newly promoted Hakoah were never going to be easy-beats and were never going to lie down, they also caused us a few problems throughout the 1st Half. Both sides had half chances to open the scoring. But around 10 minutes before half-time, it would be us who would open the scoring. We were awarded a freekick which Michael Gaitatzis took, he lifted the ball over the wall and dipped it into the bottom left corner, a great finish. After an eventful next 10 or so minutes, we went to the break leading 1-0.
In the 2nd Half we were doing it fairly comfortably, although Hakoah stepped it up a bit in a bid to try to find an equaliser. Most of the danger seemed to come from set pieces most of which we dealt with fairly well. It was unfortunate then that with 10 minutes before full-time, we conceded a goal which could be classified as “flukey”. An attempted cross from a Hakoah player floated towards the back post, beat all the players and the out-stretched hand of Paul Henderson and nestled in the back of the net. What could have ended in another disappointing night was saved as the boys pushed hard in the last 5 minutes to find the winner. And a winner would arrive in the last minute via a cool finish by Oliver Green inside the 6 yard box. It did not stop there, because deep into injury time Jason Madonis picked up the ball outside the box and bent his low shot around the Hakoah goalkeeper to put the icing on a huge Sydney Olympic cake. The referee blew his whistle for full-time and to the delight of the travelling Sydney Olympic Supporters we had notched up only our 2nd victory of the season, a much needed victory at that.
So it was a very important win for the morale of the Club, in what was a pretty good performance against a difficult opponent at a foreign ground where many of our players have probably never played before.
In the U20’s we had a 4-0 Win and in the U18s we had a 1-1 Draw.
Our next match is this Wednesday Night, May 4th, in Round 6 FFA Cup Qualifying against Illawarra Premier League club, Wollongong United. The match is at Belmore Sports Ground with Kickoff at 7:30pm. Hopefully the club gets all its security plans and procedures sorted because we all know that these people, this particular group of people, are known troublemakers and they will be out to cause trouble for Sydney Olympic and its Supporters.
Our next League match is this Sunday Afternoon May 8th, at Lambert Park with Kickoff at 3pm. It is supposed to be a scheduled home match but which has been moved from Belmore to Lambert Park and I shit you not, because of a Rugby League “International” between Lebanon and Cook Islands, absolutely ridiculous.
We started the match off well and got into our groove rather quickly and we were looking threatening. But as their recent results have shown, newly promoted Hakoah were never going to be easy-beats and were never going to lie down, they also caused us a few problems throughout the 1st Half. Both sides had half chances to open the scoring. But around 10 minutes before half-time, it would be us who would open the scoring. We were awarded a freekick which Michael Gaitatzis took, he lifted the ball over the wall and dipped it into the bottom left corner, a great finish. After an eventful next 10 or so minutes, we went to the break leading 1-0.
In the 2nd Half we were doing it fairly comfortably, although Hakoah stepped it up a bit in a bid to try to find an equaliser. Most of the danger seemed to come from set pieces most of which we dealt with fairly well. It was unfortunate then that with 10 minutes before full-time, we conceded a goal which could be classified as “flukey”. An attempted cross from a Hakoah player floated towards the back post, beat all the players and the out-stretched hand of Paul Henderson and nestled in the back of the net. What could have ended in another disappointing night was saved as the boys pushed hard in the last 5 minutes to find the winner. And a winner would arrive in the last minute via a cool finish by Oliver Green inside the 6 yard box. It did not stop there, because deep into injury time Jason Madonis picked up the ball outside the box and bent his low shot around the Hakoah goalkeeper to put the icing on a huge Sydney Olympic cake. The referee blew his whistle for full-time and to the delight of the travelling Sydney Olympic Supporters we had notched up only our 2nd victory of the season, a much needed victory at that.
So it was a very important win for the morale of the Club, in what was a pretty good performance against a difficult opponent at a foreign ground where many of our players have probably never played before.
In the U20’s we had a 4-0 Win and in the U18s we had a 1-1 Draw.
Our next match is this Wednesday Night, May 4th, in Round 6 FFA Cup Qualifying against Illawarra Premier League club, Wollongong United. The match is at Belmore Sports Ground with Kickoff at 7:30pm. Hopefully the club gets all its security plans and procedures sorted because we all know that these people, this particular group of people, are known troublemakers and they will be out to cause trouble for Sydney Olympic and its Supporters.
Our next League match is this Sunday Afternoon May 8th, at Lambert Park with Kickoff at 3pm. It is supposed to be a scheduled home match but which has been moved from Belmore to Lambert Park and I shit you not, because of a Rugby League “International” between Lebanon and Cook Islands, absolutely ridiculous.
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