What a match! This one was for those few spectators who dared turn up. It was a game,
not only of differing styles, but of differing quality and more importantly, of differing
states of play.
The game changed so many times that it was impossible to state that either team was overall
the more dominant. In the first half it looked like a David versus Gollaith type match
where Olympic were obviously the superior team both through their keeness to win the ball
and through their style of play. Canberra were disjointed and there was a lot of hoof and
hope. Yet it was Canberra who had numerous chances and seemed to be the most likely team
to score.
Olympic's main problem was basically one player - Mike Gibson, their goal-keeper. He was
having a shocker in this first half. Any high ball that came his way was an 'Oh mother, not
that ball again' feeling for the visting supporters. If it wasn't for the back line of
Barrett, Ciantar and Poimer with man-of-the-match Ivan Zelic, Olympic would have conceded
at least a few goals just in that first half. Little did they know just what was going to
transpire during the second.
In the 7th minute Marko Perinovic challenged Gibson for the ball. When it fell free, he was
unlucky to see his volley blocked by a defender. 10 minutes later, a Richard Watson cross
came to an unmarked Perinovic. He tried to chest the ball down, but it was cleared away
for a corner. Michael Musitano took the corner. It went shallow to the near post where Jason
Dunn headed the ball on for Watson to head down towards goal. Unfortuantely for him Walter
Ardone was on hand to push the ball away. Within the next 10 minutes Musitano had another
chance when the defence decided to leave a high bouncing ball for Gibson. Fortunately for
Olympic, one of the defenders came back to clear the ball in time.
Whilst Gibson was having a nightmare at one end, Anthony Giannasca was not having a quiet
time at the other. The second part of the first half saw numerous attacks by the visitors.
Giannasca had to parry away hard shots from Poimer and Edwards. Also Barrett and Trajanovski
teamed up well to put in some close chances, but each of these went over the bar.
In the 39th minute the break through came. It was Olympic who took advantage of a team that
had chosen the wrong minute to fall asleep. Ivan Zelic decided to walk through the midfield.
When he reached the penalty area he was tackled, but the rebound fell to Adam Ciantar out
wide right. His long cross found a diving Kris Trajanovski who put his header past Giannasca.
This finished the half with Olympic not only leading on the scoreboard, but also looking more
the goods given the way they finished the half.
The beginning of the second half looked much like that of the end of the first. Olympic were
still in charge and a Trajanovski cross found Poimer only to see his chance just miss. Kris
had a chance himself a few minutes later, but his low shot was blocked away for a corner. This
was the end of Olympic! From here on the whole game changed.
The writing was on the wall when Musitano was able to thread a ball to Alex Castro in the middle
of the box, but he was tackled by Zelic as he was trying to turn for the shot. It all really
started in the 64th minute when Norman Kelly saw his volley saved off the line after a Tony
Lemezina (who came on for Castro) cross was headed down by Perinovic. Two minutes later,
Adam Ciantar saved off the line from a sure goal header by Perinovic after another Lemezina
cross.
In the 70th minute, Paul Wade went for a low cross from the right. Walter Ardone tried to
kick the ball away, but saw it heading precariously towards his own goal. Gibson did well
to push it over for a corner. From this corner, the ball went out to the midfield before it
re-entered the Olympic penalty area and rebounded off a few players on the line. The Olympic
wall was holding out. 4 minutes later Richard Watson hoofed the ball to the edge of the
penalty area. Marko had manouvered himself to have a free header and tried to head over the
backpeddling Gibson, but the goal-keeper was up to the task pushing the ball onto the bar
and away for a corner. Three minutes later Watson walked through some lazy defence and sent
a solid low left foot cross just out of the reach of the charging Lemezina.
A few minutes later John Koch ventured forward from his sweeper role and after Perinovic headed
a cross back, Koch's solid header was saved off the line by a David Barrett header. Koch had
another chance three minutes later when his overhead was again cleared off the line. Into
extra time Ardone had a shot. It had been over 30 minutes since the last Olympic shot!
Then justice finally came when the ball fell to Lachlan Armstrong, he first time passed it
to Lemezina wide right. Lemezina, all alone took his time to measure a beautiful cross for the
continuing Armstrong to meet sweetly with a diving header and push past Gibson. This was the
93rd minute of the game. The final whistle blew only a minute later.
Overall a 1-1 result may seem unfair to the home team given the number of chances they had,
but one must remember the dominance that befell Olympic during a long spell in the first half
and early in the second. Olympic coach David Ratcliffe was happy to gain the point and stated
that being on 47 points was much better that being one of the many teams on 44. Good news for
him and his team was that leaders Marconi had lost, so they picked up a point on them. For
Cosmos coach Mike Lyons, he could see, as we could too, that there really was a need for a
'real' striker to put away all the chances that the team continuously produces. Onto Marconi
on Saturday.