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Sydney Through After Scare FIFA Club World Championship - Semi Final - Wednesday 11 May 2005  Perth Glory FC 1 (Ufuk Talay og) defeated by Sydney FC 2 (David Carney, Saso Petrovski)   In front of a very healthy crowd of 9,968 at a drenched MES Sydney FC scored a deserved 2-1 victory over Perth Glory in the battle of the so called glamour clubs of the new A-League. It was a very disappointing display by the Perth side who showed little or no imagination throughout the match. However nothing can be taken from Sydney after they had to travel to Perth and were then hit by an own goal just minutes into the 2nd half. To their credit it was Litbarski's men who rallied within 1 minute to equalise and then forged onwards to score the winner. With the exception of a Despotovski shot after 53 minutes, Perth's 2nd half was a very poor show with no real attacks. Even playing like that it was hard to fathom why the coach did not attempt to inject some life into the side with earlier substitution, but instead waited until the 84th minute before making a change. The game started with some promise for Perth and indeed they should have taken the lead in the 8th minute when Despotovski missed from about 12 metres out. Sydney slowly took control without really causing too much panic in the Glory defence until the 19th minute when Zdrillic had a shot well saved by Jovanic. The closest to a goal was in the last seconds of the first half when Sydney's defence failed to clear a Glory attack and a mad scramble followed with Teggart unlucky not to score. Just 3 minutes into the 2nd half, Ishida passed to Despotovski on the right and his attempted cross come shot was turned into his own net by the unfortunate Talay.
The joy
was short lived for the Glory though as inside 1 minute Carney on the
right broke into the Glory box before turning Miller inside out and
getting onto his left foot to hit a scorcher inside the post for the
equaliser. In the 61st minute Littbarski made his first substitution taking off my man of the match Carney and replacing him with Middleby. This was a tactical change that paid great rewards as it stemmed the flow of Ishida on the right and thereby killed any attacking moves by Glory.
Further
reward came after 75 minutes when on the counter attack Packer played
the ball to Petrovski who finished with aplomb to put Sydney 2-1 up.
From that moment on Glory never threatened and in fact any half chances that came fell to Sydney. After the match Sydney coach Littbarski was humble in victory claiming that his side were probably lucky to win, but that there would be more bigger and better battles between the clubs when the A-League starts proper. By contrast a very dark Steve McMahon laid all the blame for the defeat at the feet of the senior or as he called them "name" players in the squad. He refused to take any blame for the defeat in his lack of action from the sidelines as regards substitutions. This did indeed seem very strange to this reporter especially as he maintained he was disappointed with the players on the pitch. So Sydney now head to Adelaide to take on the Mariners in the final. 
FIFA Club
World Championship - Semi Final - Wednesday 11 May 2005 Perth
Glory FC 1 (Talay OG) Crowd: 9,968 MATCH STATS:
Perth Glory
FC
: 20 Milan Jovanic (gk) Subs: 2 Matt Horsley (84') 6 Steve McMahon Jr (89) 15 Billy Celeski (89)
Subs not used: 1 Gareth Deeg (GK) Coach: Steve McMahon
Yellow
Cards:
Nil
Sydney FC :
1 Clint Bolton 8 Matthew Bingley 9 David Zdrilic 11 Sasho Petrovski 12 David Carney (68') 14 Andrew Packer 15 Terry McFlynn 16 Mark Milligan
Subs:
Subs not used:
17 Jacob Timpano Coach: Pierre Littbarski
Yellow
Cards:
Nil Referee: 5/10 Pitch: 8/10 would have been 10 except for the Rugby League marking. Game rating: 6/10 Best Players :
3. David
Carney (Sydney) Match Report by Eamon Duffy, Photos by Tom Neidrich
Crafted
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