The second leg of the AFC Champions League Two semifinals beckons, and Sydney FC are feeling the pressure like never before.
Instead of another glorious road trip in Singapore, an anemic performance against Lion City Sailors put the Sky Blues down 2-0. Now, in front of their home crowd, Sydney must try and pull off the most important comeback of the season.
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Succeed, and they’ll reach the final in style while earning the right to host it. Fail, and their ACL Two journey is over. Before we light the fuse on this Wednesday night dynamite, let’s recap what happened last week and explore ways Sydney can make up for their earlier mistakes.
Shooting woes put Sydney in hole
As things got going at Jalan Besar Stadium, the longtime home of the Singaporean national team, Sydney got off to a decent enough start, quickly establishing the edge in possession and immediately taking the first shot of the match.
The former would hold, but the latter aspect proved problematic over the course of the half, as the Sky Blues got just three total shot attempts in, none of which remotely threatened Sailors keeper Izwan Mahbud.
The hosts, meanwhile, found themselves mostly thwarted in their own chances, as Sydney outfielders blocked four of the Sailors’ five shots. However, the one that got through proved the most crucial of all.
When wingback Diogo Costa sent a pass to Bart Ramselaar in the 18th minute, the Dutchman launched a screamer from outside the box that went over Harrison Devenish-Meares’s head, then took a fortunate bounce off the crossbar and in for a goal.
Douglas Costa (Photo by Steve Christo – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)
Thanks to Sydney’s aforementioned shooting woes, culminating in Douglas Costa sending a direct free kick straight over the goal, that proved to be the difference going into half-time.
As the Sky Blues flipped the record over and attempted to catch their opposition on the B-side, they quickly suffered yet another setback. Once again, Diogo Costa played a major role, this time launching a pass from his own half to a waiting Lennart Thy. The German striker, faced with a one-on-two situation, kept running forward and fired at an odd angle, but he put it precisely through the tight window and scored.
For Thy, it marked a whopping 10 goals in his last four appearances. For Diogo Costa, it cemented a brace of assists on the night, and as well as five assists in the span of a week. However, more importantly than any of that, it gave the Sailors a crucial two-goal lead in front of their proud home fans.
Sydney’s chokehold over possession would only tighten as the rest of the match unfolded.
They wound up holding the ball for 77 per cent of the second half, and they even managed to address their lack of chances, launching nine shots to LCS’s four. But like Kobe Bryant on a bad night, what the Sky Blues brought in shooting volume, they wasted with inaccuracy.
It took until the 70th minute for Sydney to actually put a shot on target, and they’d only do so once more the rest of the way.
With that, it was relatively simple for the hosts, who’ll now fly down to the Harbour City with two goals in hand and a chance to shock the world by becoming the first ever Singaporean side to reach a continental final.
The keys to turning things around
While an advantage in possession is expected whenever Australian teams face ones from Southeast Asian leagues, the key to those games historically going so well has been the ability to turn that possession into scoring chances—and, in turn, chances into goals.
What Sydney did last time out amounted to chewing up the clock for empty calories, and that can’t be the case again.
Of course, with Lion City’s preference for the 5-4-1 formation, and no incentive for the visitors to do anything other than turtle up, cracking open that shell is going to be easier said than done.
Rather than try to ram it down the Sailors’ throat, Sydney should fall back on the formation’s classic weakness and attack through the wide areas. Aside from the obvious responsibilities that strategy gives to the wingers, this also means shutting down LCS’s wingbacks in defence, never allowing them to become two-way impact players.
If Diogo Costa has free reign to be a playmaker again, it could mean the difference between dragging this out and getting hit with an early dagger.
Finally, if there’s one player who absolutely needs to be uncaged in this match, it’s Adrian Segecic. In the road leg of this tie, he was immediately the most alive Sky Blue on the pitch the second he arrived from off the bench, and over the weekend, his first-half brace ensured Sydney scored a point against Auckland.
Combined with the aforementioned tactical needs of stopping the 5-4-1, the young winger will be an essential piece of any successful comeback puzzle.
Sydney’s opponent if they advance is still very much in question. Saudi Arabian club Al-Taawoun currently lead the West Asian final 1-0 thanks to an early goal, but their Emirati opponents Sharjah FC will have home field advantage in the second leg and could easily mount a comeback.
Whoever survives, they’ll make a worthy final adversary—but if Sydney falters, all that match will do is give them someone to share the bronze medal with.
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