Brisbane Roar’s long road trip double has ended on a positive with an excellent performance garnering a 1-1 draw with Adelaide at Hindmarsh Stadium.
Brisbane Roar-s long road trip double has ended on a positive with an excellent performance garnering a 1-1 draw with Adelaide at Hindmarsh Stadium.
On Wednesday Brisbane also secured a point on the road with a 3-3 draw, but the performance left Brisbane Roar Head Coach Ange Postecoglou disappointed.
The Roar mentor will have no complaints following Saturday-s match, with Brisbane controlling the tempo of the match from the outset in an excellent response to Wednesday-s performance.
Brisbane started the game confidently, pushing the ball around with purpose and looking sharp.
After 10 minutes Massimo Murdocca had the first chance of the match when he confidently controlled an Ivan Franjic cross inside the box, but his volley went just wide of the goal.
A wonderful move down the left 10 minutes later nearly had Brisbane in for the opening goal when Besart Berisha latched on to a Shane Stefanutto cross, but Eugene Galekovic stood tall in the Adelaide goal to deny the Albanian striker.
Michael Theoklitos then needed to be at his best in the Brisbane goal when Fabian Barbiero smashed the ball goalwards from fully 25m.
Both sides had the chance to open the scoring on 32 minutes with first Besart Berisha forcing Galekovic into a smart save down low before Bruce Djite missed an open goal while sliding in to meet a cross from the right.
Brisbane was controlling the match and a series of free-kicks ended with Mohamed Adnan having a strike from just outside the box which again required a smart save from Galekovic.
Despite the action, neither side could break the deadlock before the break.
The away side opened the second half in confident fashion, looking to create an opening inside three minutes of the restart, but Berisha couldn-t quite get onto the end of a Issey Nakajima-Farran cutback.
Nakajima-Farran then had his own opportunity when put through by substitute Luke Brattan, but screwed his left-foot shot wide of the goal.
Brisbane opened the scoring on the hour mark following some outstanding build-up play which saw the Roar string together a series of passes before Matt Smith found Rocky Visconte down the left whose pinpoint cutback to the top of the box was expertly finished by Nakajima-Farran.
Adelaide found some legs midway through the second half after looking dead on their feet, to push Brisbane back for the first time after the break.
Adelaide luckily found their way back into the match when referee Ben Williams awarded dubious penalty to the home side which was converted by Sergio van Dijk and for the second game running Brisbane were denied maximum points by late penalty drama.
Brisbane responded well, looking to once again the ascendency in the match and pushing Adelaide deep into their own half.
However try as they might, Brisbane couldn-t find the killer touch to secure all three points.
Brisbane Roar Head Coach Ange Postecoglou was justifiably proud of his side-s effort, bouncing back from the disappointing effort against Perth during the week.
“For the whole 90 minutes I thought we controlled the game,” Postecoglou said.
“We played football mainly in their half and from a coaching perspective that-s pretty satisfactory.
“We stuck to our gameplan and the way we want to play football, so that-s pleasing.”
Adelaide United 1 (van Dijk 79- (pen))
Brisbane 1 (Nakajima-Farran 60-)
Hindmarsh Stadium, Adelaide
Referee: Ben Williams
Crowd: 11,274
Adelaide United: 1. Eugene Galekovic (c, GK), 3. Nigel Boogaard, 5. Daniel Mullen, 7. Zenon Caravella, 9. Sergio van Dijk, 10. Dario Vidosic (17. Iain Ramsay 59-), 11. Bruce Djite, 12. Antony Golec, 14. Cameron Watson, 18. Fabian Barbiero (15. Jacob Melling 76-), 21. Francisco Usucar (2. Osama Malik 68-).
Substitutes note used: 20. Mark Birighitti (GK)
Yellow cards: 18. Fabian Barbiero (44-). 9. Sergio van Dijk (55-)
Red cards: Nil
Brisbane Roar: 1. Michael Theoklitos (GK), 2. Matt Smith (c), 3. Shane Stefanutto, 5. Ivan Franjic, 6. Erik Paartalu, 7. Besart Berisha, 8. Massimo Murdocca, 11. Issey Nakajima-Farran (9. Kofi Danning 79-), 14. Rocco Visconte, 16. Mohamed Adnan, 17. Mitch Nichols (18. Luke Brattan 33-).
Substitutes not used: 4. Matthew Jurman, 20. Andrew Redmayne (GK).
Yellow cards: 11. Issey Nakajima-Faran (44-), 2. Matt Smith (76-)
Red cards: Nil
