Sydney Olympic 2-1 Blacktown Spartans

It’s been a few weeks but we are back in the winner’s circle after a gritty 2-1 win against Blacktown Spartans at Belmore Sports Ground on Sunday Afternoon. A much needed victory at that.

We started the match off well and with great enthusiasm. But given the current League position of our opposition, it was clear from the outset that they had also come to play. It was our Sydney Olympic though that opened the scoring via a shot which took a wicked bounce in front of the Spartans keeper, with the ball spilling off him and falling to Jacob Boutoubia who made no mistake to prod it home and give us a 1-0 lead. After the goal we created a few more chances during the 1^st half, Boutoubia was looking dangerous and he had a chance at a 2^nd goal a few minutes later with his well taken header destined for the top corner, only for it to be well saved by the Spartans keeper. Spartans hit back throughout the 1^st half creating several chances and would probably say they were a bit unlucky not to grab an equaliser during the rest of the 1st half. We also had a few chances to extend our lead, but as it was we went to the break leading 1-0.

Despite our packed schedule of the past few weeks, we again looked energetic to start off the 2^nd half. That man again Boutoubia was causing the opposition all sorts of problems, he created another chance for himself only for his shot to smash against the crossbar, very unlucky. 10 minutes into the 2^nd half though, the match would be turned on its head. A dubious 2^nd yellow card saw Niko Tsattalios sent for an early shower, leaving us to battle on with 10 men for the last 35 minutes. From us being on the front foot and fairly dominant we then had to retreat and play on the counter in a bid to hold onto our lead. With the man advantage Spartans lifted a gear to try and find that equaliser. Ironically it would be us who would score and double our advantage. Some nice work found a free Anthony Tomelic out on the left hand side, he put in a nice looking cross that found Michael Gaitatzis whose fine header found the back of the net, to the delight of the Olympic supporters. The 2 goal advantage was restored, but it was short lived though as only a few minutes later Spartans again reduced the deficit to 1 through a well taken goal. Throughout the match Paul Henderson was once again huge for us, pulling off numerous saves to keep us in the lead. The last 10 minutes were all about holding on as Spartans searched for the equaliser, but it was not to be for them and we held on for an important victory.

I must commend all the players, with many injuries, a few new faces and with a lot of matches under their belts already this season, they worked extremely hard and gave everything to achieve this win.

As seen today though, we are guilty at times of trying to be too cute with the ball inside our own defensive third, against higher calibre opposition we most probably would have paid for our mistakes, today we got away with it, we must learn from this.

In the U20s we won 3-2 courtesy of a virtuoso performance from Michael Loupis who scored a hat-trick, and in the U18s we picked up a 1-1 draw. Most importantly in respect to the Club Championship, it was a very good round as we picked up a valuable 19 points. More of the same please.

Last Wednesday Night we were in FFA Cup action against Sydney United at Edensor Park, with the reward being progression to the Main Draw of the 2016 FFA Cup. After putting in a good shift we succumbed to a 2-1 defeat. So there will be no FFA Cup this year and given the current system used by Football NSW, we are also out of the Waratah Cup as well.

So no more midweek matches for this season, which is a blessing. Next week we have another huge home game in the League against old foes APIA Leichhardt. Sunday the 29^th of May at Belmore Sports Ground, kickoff is at 3pm.