Saints stun Stallions
FOR the first time this year, St George FC has recorded back-to-back wins following a come-from-behind 2-1win over Marconi Stallions.
It couldn’t have been a worse start for the visiting St George side after losing inspirational captain Juan Chavez to a lower leg injury in the opening minutes following a heavy challenge from behind.
It was Chavez’s replacement Andreas Vais who could have opened the scoring in the 13’ minute for the men in red and white.
Right-back Costa Andricopoulos provided some excellent lead up work when he sent a neat ball down to George Codrea lurking out wide on the right. The classy midfielder outpaced the Stallions already-stretched defence and crossed to an unmarked Vais who shot wide of the mark and over the crossbar.
Despite the loss of Chavez, much of the early pressure came from St George and they were presented with another great opportunity in the 17’ minute when David Talevski linked up with the energetic Bruno Pivato.
Talevski found an unmarked Pivato in the middle of the park and delivered the midfielder a great ball where he turned and shot, but was denied by a diving James Chronopoulos who managed to get a hand on the ball to push it just wide of the far post.
The momentum swung ever-so-slightly back in the favour of the home side when the dangerous Matt Thompson almost created a goal out of nothing in the 26’ minute. Thompson, who was perhaps Marconi’s best in the opening stanza, realised that nothing was on offer at the top right edge of the box and fired off a powerful drive on target which was only negated by a quick-thinking Dion Shaw who tipped the ball over the bar.
Marconi were in the thick of the action again in the 42’ minute when Sean O’Connell displayed some dazzling footwork out on the left edge to get inside of a number of St George defenders. O’Connell sent the ball to teammate Milorad Simonovic whose shot was on target but directed straight at the keeper.
An injury time opportunity was again presented to the home side when a corner was cleared as only as far Simonovic whose bounced shot was mistimed and instead found an open Tomislav Mijic on the front left side of the box. Mijic should have done better, but his rushed shot went well wide of the near post to ensure that both sides headed into the break locked up at 0-0 with the game still well and truly in the balance.
St. George laid claim to the first realistic opportunity in the second-half when in the 54’ minute Codrea again provided some excellent lead up work from out on the left. The midfielder, who created havoc out wide in the first 45’ minutes, took on a number of would-be Stallion defenders before delivering a cross to the feet of replacement forward Chris Gomez, whose shot was deflected by a Marconi player and out for a corner.
A speculative shot by the Stallions’ Simonovic from well outside the box in the 64’ minute failed to trouble the Saints keeper as it flew high over the bar as both sides struggled to crack each other’s defensive lines.
However, it was a set piece from a free-kick on the front right edge of the box, after Saints defender David Dascal brought down Shu Sasaki just outside the penalty area, which finally broke the deadlock in the 75’ minute.
Marconi’s Sean O’Connell lined up to take the free-kick, but faked away before Mitchell Thompson curled a brilliant left-foot shot around the Saints keeper Shaw to open the scoring for the home side.
The visitors hit back almost immediately to level the scores once again when Pivato crossed the ball to an awaiting Vais who scored his second goal in as many weeks. Vais was on the spot to receive the ball from Pivato out on the left and made no mistake as he guided it past Chronopoulos in the 78’ minute.
The game looked destined to pan out to a 1-1 draw, but nobody accounted for the brilliance of Talevski. The classy attacker bamboozled the Marconi defence with his footwork and stepped his way from out on the right in towards the box and appeared to have the ball on a string as he again stepped inside to fire off a left-foot shot that slipped past Chronopoulos to steal the game for the Saints with a 2-1 final score line.
“That was the outcome of a lot of hard work,” claimed a jubilant St. George FC coach Manny Spanoudakis after his side’s second-consecutive win.
“There is a lot of self-belief at this club and as the coach it’s important for me to stay positive and reinforce positiveness.
“And it was a win in difficult circumstances as we lost both Juan Chavez and Aleks Jovovic who were major losses for us during that game as they are key players in our front-third.
“They all worked hard out there and our performance was both pretty at times and also ugly at times, but nonetheless it was a very satisfactory outcome and I’m very happy.
“Irrespective of our position on the ladder we have a very good culture in our change room and very good character throughout this squad. I think that there are eight or nine of the boys who are still with us from our Mens 2 Championship last year and there is that belief that we can turn games around like we did tonight.”
Marconi captain James Chronopoulos was obviously disappointed with his side’s loss right at the death, but emphasised that his side needs to play for the full 90’ minutes.
“I think we dominated for most of that game, but they counterattacked and got us with an injury time goal,” conceded Chronopoulos.
“We seem to go up 1-nil in games and then we take the foot off the accelerator, so we need to work hard on closing out games as it keeps coming back to bite us.”
The Stallions head north next Sunday afternoon as they travel across the harbour to take on a hot and cold Manly United outfit at Cromer Park, while St. George head deep into Tiger territory next Saturday evening in their round 12 clash against APIA-Leichhardt at Lambert Park.
Match Stats
Marconi Stallions 1 (Mitchell Thompson 75’)
St. George FC 2 (Andreas Vais 78’, David Talevski 90+2’)
Saturday May 24, 2014
Marconi Stadium, Bossley Park
Referee: Michael Weiner
Assistant Referees: Lee Corey and Mitchell Clark
Fourth Official: Kate-Louise Patterson
Marconi Stallions: 22.James Chronopoulos (C); 2.Mitchell Thompson, 3.Ali Haydar, 4.Trent Barton(9.Marco Sama 56’), 7.Sean O’Connell, 10.Milorad Simonovic, 14.Matt Thompson, 15.Tomislav Mijic,18.Jake McGing (16.Bright Appiah 54’), 20.Shu Sasaki, 23.Christopher Nunes
Substitutes Not Used: 1.Nathan Campbell, 5.Brenton Rhodes, 17.Steven Drewery
Yellow Cards: Nil
Red Cards: Nil
St. George: 1.Dion Shaw; 2.Costa Andricopoulos, 3.David Dascal, 5.Bill Tsanidis, 10.Bruno Pivato, 11.Juan Chavez (C) (34.Andreas Vais 8’), 12.Aleks Jovovic (7.Chris Gomez 46’), 13.Lenox Tweneboa, 16.Jonathan Castano-Acero, 19.David Talevski, 23.George Codrea (9.Aman Hadid 71’)
Substitutes Not Used: 6.Maerto Jurilj, 21.Lucas North
Yellow Cards: Jonathan Castano-Acero 68’, David Dascal 75’
Red Cards: Nil
Players Ratings:
3 – Bruno Pivato (STG)
2 – Milorad Simonovic (MS)
1 – George Codrea (STG)
-By Gary McDonald, NPL NSW Mens 1 Reporter, at Marconi Stadium
