Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Sydney: Substitute Milos Dimitrijevic scored an 88th minute winner as Australia’s Sydney FC claimed a thrilling 2-1 win over China’s Guangzhou Evergrande on Wednesday in the AFC Champions League to leave the defending champions still without a win in Group H.
Sydney, who lost 2-0 to Japan’s Urawa Red Diamonds in last week’s opener, took an early lead at Sydney Football Stadium through Robert Stambolziev’s before home goalkeeper Vedran Janjetovic saved Ricardo Goulart’s penalty.
Huang Bowen did manage to equalise for Chinese Super League champions Guangzhou before half-time, but with the visitors seemingly on course for a second consecutive draw following last week’s stalemate at home to Korea Republic’s Pohang Steelers, Dimitrijevic powered home to snatch all three points for the home side.
“A wonderful night for Sydney FC, the club and the players especially. We’ve had a pretty tough last five weeks, but our performance tonight was outstanding,” said Sydney coach Graham Arnold.
“Our tactical discipline and our structure was perfect, the boys carried out the game plan very well and I thought we were good for the three points tonight.
“We have to build momentum on the back of this. It’s a fantastic result to beat the champions. The boys did fantastically well.
“I said to the players, I don’t believe any other team in the country could do what they did tonight against them. Guangzhou were at full strength, they had all their top players here and they came here with intentions to win and we did better than them tonight.”
Sydney started the match on the front foot, heeding the pre-match advice from coach Arnold to not take a backward step against the two-time AFC Champions League winners.
And Sydney opened the scoring in the 17th minute through Stambolziev as the dynamic winger lashed the ball home from close range following excellent build up play from David Carney and Shane Smeltz.
Guangzhou, though, had a chance to equalise just five minutes later as Jackson Martinez was bundled over by Sebastian Ryall inside the area only for Sydney goalkeeper Janjetovic to save Goulart’s penalty.
But it took just three minutes for Goulart to redeem himself as a superb through ball from the Brazilian found Huang in space behind the Sydney defence and the midfielder charged forward before beating Janjetovic despite the best efforts of Aaron Calver on the line.
Sydney almost found an instant response as Matthew Jurman thumped a header against the crossbar with Guangzhou goalkeeper Zeng Cheng a bystander before Martinez shot just wide for the visitors.
And the fast paced nature of the contest continued in the second half as Sydney’s Smeltz and Milos Ninkovic both wasted chances, as did Guangzhou’s Yu Hanchao.
Brandon O’Neill and Carney also wasted chances from promising positions for the home side in the closing stages.
But with two minutes remaining, substitute Milos Dimitrijevic created space for himself inside the area before firing past an unconvincing Zeng to snatch all three points.
“Tonight Sydney FC deserved to win this match. We found it quite difficult in defence because we always want to attack the opponent and be on the front foot. We have some problems in defence when we have to go back in our positions,” said Guangzhou coach Luiz Felipe Scolari.
“After the match I can say the difference between the two teams is that Sydney FC have good quality, they are very strong physically and create a lot of opportunities to score. They are a very good team.”
Photo: Lagardère Sports