Will Sydney be up for the Roar’s Challenge?

By: Michael Turner | October 21st, 2009

2nd Place Sydney FC will take on Brisbane Roar on Sunday, with a chance to snare top spot from Gold Coast. Brisbane will enter the match quietly confident, with a better record against the Sky Blues. Nevertheless, the match will be a fan pleaser, with the sides looking to the finals next year, both with a chance to win the coveted ‘Golden Toilet Seat’.
Henqirue Andreda Silva Going into this match with a loss, Sydney will be very disappointed with the way things have panned out for them. They have had several chances to hold top spot away from Gold Coast, but have fallen at the last hurdle. Sydney despite some lackluster performances, come into the match with some big wins under their belt, including a slaughtering of Melbourne Victory 3-0 in front of 30,000 fans at Etihad Stadium. With a goal tally of 14 so far, the Sky Blues have shown a faint aptitude for finding the net. With 5 clean sheets also down, Sydney seem to be settling for 1-0 scorelines too often, and sometimes this has led to their demise, with a conservative mindset acting as a demon against North Queensland Fury and Brisbane Roar.

On the other side, the Roar have suffered a fair share of losses this season, and haven’t won since their last outing against Sydney back in September. The Roar however did trouble Gold Coast and Melbourne with those clashes having a very low scoreline. On the road, Brisbane have a fairly decent record, with one win, two draws and one loss. As with Sydney, they have scored 14 goals, but have conceded 18 leaving the goal difference open to opinion.

In what could be a bad omen for Sydney, they haven’t beaten Brisbane since July 2008, in the (now defunct) Pre-Season Cup, in which they won 2-1, however their last league win over Brisbane was in September 2007 in which Sydney won 1-0. In the league, Sydney have won 3 out of their last 5 games, with the Roar only winning 1.

Moving on into statistics, Sydney have scored exactly 50% of goals in the first half, with Brisbane scoring 57.14%. In more precise terms, Sydney have scored nearly 42% of their goals with 20 minutes remaining, with Brisbane scoring 50% in the first half hour. On average it takes 46.38 minutes before Sydney first score, compared to 43.22 for Brisbane. It takes Sydney on average 48.67 minutes to concede, compared with 27.75 minutes for Brisbane. Sydney have failed to score on 3 occasions, in contrast to Brisbane’s 2.

The key men for Sydney will have to be our equal top scorers, Mark Bridge and John Aloisi. Both players, have on and off days, and we are all hoping for an on day for both players. Both have 4 goals this season however Aloisi has only played 8 matches compared to Bridge’s 10. Another player to watch, is fan favourite Kofi Danning. The young attacker can play on the flanks or up-front, and has scored one this season, against North Queensland. Danning’s dazzling skills have left opponents in his tracks and we are all hoping that he can get his second season goal sometime soon.

Brisbane’s key men are Sergio van Dijk, and Henrique Andrade Silva. Van Dijk has scored 5 this season, and doesn’t look like stopping. His eye for goal could possibly be almost as great as Shane Smeltz, and can sniff out opportunities from even the dimmest circumstances. Silva is a talented midfielder and has scored 3 goals this season. He could be one of the deciding differences for the Roar on Sunday.

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