Perth Glory Robbed in A-League Final

[Luigi]

PERTH Glory lost a scandalous A-League Grand Final after Brisbane Roar star Besart Berisha won a horror penalty in the 95th minute and converted the spot kick to seal a 2-1 victory.

Temperamental Roar striker Berisha was the hero for the Roar, scoring a late brace after Glory had led 1-0 until the 83rd minute to be within touching distance of a fairytale championship.

It was unclear whether Berisha simply lost balance after an air swing in the box, or blatantly dived in a cynical attempt to con referee Jarred Gillett.

Devastated Glory captain Jacob Burns blasted the decision, saying it was clearly not a penalty, while Berisha claimed he had been touched before going down.

"These knee-jerk decisions cost you cups,'' a gutted Burns said.

"I feel like I've been robbed there with the decision, it cost us the Grand Final.

"You could see plain as day ... you could see it by Berisha's reaction. He came up straight up and said it wasn't a penalty.

"I'm just gutted.''

Glory was down to 10 men after defender Dean Heffernan received his second booking for an over-zealous tackle on Ivan Franjic in the 91st minute.

Berisha earlier found a deserved equaliser in the 83rd minute, rising above Glory defender Steve Pantelidis to head home a pinpoint ball from Thomas Broich just as Perth eyed an upset for the ages.

Perth was comprehensively outplayed and didn't force Roar goalkeeper Michael Theoklitos to make a single save, but displayed tremendous heart and discipline in a match played on a shocking surface in front of 50,334 fans at Brisbane's Suncorp Stadium.

The first decisive moment arrived in the 51st minute, with Brisbane defender Franjic the villain after finding his own net.

A near capacity orange sea at the ground was left in stunned silence - and a pocket of about 1000 travelling Perth fans were sent into ecstacy - when Franjic deflected the ball into his own net in the 51st minute.

Franjic couldn't get out of the way of a Travis Dodd cross that had been intended for Billy Mehmet in the goalmouth, with the ball dribbling over the line as Brisbane goalkeeper Michael Theoklitos looked on aghast.

Brisbane's German star Broich could have put the Roar ahead just a minute earlier only to be denied by Glory goalkeeper Danny Vukovic.

Earlier, Glory talisman Shane Smeltz was almost put out of the match after just 15 minutes following a dramatic early collison with Roar skipper Matt Smith.

Smeltz was floored by an accidental elbow from Smith on the quarter-hour mark, with the game halted for nearly four minutes as blood poured from the star striker's nose onto the turf.

Smith was fortunate to not receive a card of any colour from referee Jarred Gillett after he raised his elbow to protect himself from an oncoming Smeltz challenge.

The Glory medicos did their best job to bandage up the head of Perth's leading goalscorer this season and Smeltz continued despite substitute Steven McGarry beginning to warm-um on the sideline.

Smeltz was understood to have required stitches in his mouth at half-time.

Glory survived several heart-stopping Brisbane chances in the first half, particularly as the interval drew nearer, but weren't bad value for the 0-0 scoreline at the break after its well organised and physical approach frustrated the home side.

Adopting a high line and pressing the Roar at every opportunity, Glory were indebted to Vukovic for several smart saves.

Several well-timed interventions from Burns were also critical.

Vukovic's best first-half save was a right-handed effort on the ground which parried Mitch Nichols' 36th-minute strike around the post after it had appeared destined for the back of the net.

Glory also survived a free header from Mohamed Adnan early in the match, which he ballooned over the crossbar, while full-back Franjic's effort in the 41st minute also required a smart save from Vukovic.

Berisha also had an opportunity to find the opener when he found space at the top of the area, but was undone as the ball bobbled on the choppy surface.

He theatrically swung his boot at the offending patch of grass in disgust.

I'm a soccer fan, and a huge fan of my local team, Perth Glory. I know there's plenty of soccer fans on these boards, who will understand my pain.

[fumbler]

Berisha was in my B-League team, also Go Queensland.

[mattwswfc]

As a passionate football fan I totally sympathize with you, but I am afraid that's the way football is. You win some you lose some, and sometimes losing it may be down to a bad refereeing decision or a controversial goal.

Many a time have I seen my team be robbed by bad refereeing, in fact earlier in the season my team was up 4-2 at the end of the 90 minutes, the referee gives 7 minutes stoppage time out of no where, the team manages to pull one back early in to stoppage time, then they got an equalizer in the 8th minute of stoppage time, meaning the referee had played a minute of the allotted stoppage time without any indication why. There were no injuries, no stoppage, just a total amateur performance by the ref. The game finished a 4-4 draw and we had dropped 2 points because of a ad decision, and those 2 points could have matter so much, as we are just 1 point from a promotion place with 2 games to go.

[CS85]

[jr79]

Hmm those grapes taste mighty sour.

A team who didn't manage a shot on goal in 90 minutes can hardly consider themselves to have been 'robbed'. They were spared a heavier defeat in extra-time where they would have been a man down and out on their feet.

[Luigi]

Here's a highlights video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdsVBXaS-tE

Not only did he dive, but he was offside and the game should've been over by then.

And it gets worse:

http://www.perthnow.com.au/sport/soccer/controversy-from-a-league-grand-final-continues-after-final-whistle/story-e6frg26u-1226335683216

[fumbler]

A-League is a laughing stock Soccer will never be anything but a joke in Australia.

[Gothamite]

That's neither helpful nor relevant, nor necessarily tue.

I have to admit a low level of sympathy for Perth, though. Bad calls are a part of the game, and they couldn't get a goal in all that time leading up to it.

[TFoA]

Considering the circumstances (Game was tied, Perth weren't in the lead, Brisbane dominated the run of play & were a man up since Perth had a man sent off), this wasn't a robbery. Was it terrible fortune for Perth that the ref fell for such an awful dive (seriously, that's one of the worst dives I've seen outside of Italy & any league in South America)? Of course.

That's the way it goes sometimes. :-/

[scottysprings]

From the highlights the whole match seemed rather chippy; is that just the A-League style of play? Additionally, that striker who dived is a scumbag.

[pcgd]

Maybe its just me, and maybe they had the crowd volume turned up but that seemed like a pretty crazy atmosphere. Almost a college bowl game mixed with European Football.

Usually when you watch soccer its either pretty quite (MLS) or you just hear singing the whole time (Europe). Could be the sound mixing though...

[Luigi]

Maybe its just me, and maybe they had the crowd volume turned up but that seemed like a pretty crazy atmosphere. Almost a college bowl game mixed with European Football.

Usually when you watch soccer its either pretty quite (MLS) or you just hear singing the whole time (Europe). Could be the sound mixing though...

well, there was 52,000 people there (sell out) and the suncorp stadium is really good for atmosphere due to it's cauldron like seating. It was definitely louder than your average a-league game.

The problem with soccer in australia is there are too many casual fans. The average a-league game would draw 9,000 maybe 10,000.

[jr79]

From the highlights the whole match seemed rather chippy; is that just the A-League style of play? Additionally, that striker who dived is a scumbag.

Soccer/Football is a very physical game here. Perth turned up with a defensive mindset and for all their complaints re: the referee, he certainly went easy on them. There were lots of tackles that would have earned yellow cards in any other game and he let them slide. They could have finished with 9 or 10 men easily if this was a normal league game the way they were diving in. The late challenge from Smeltz where he wore an elbow to the face could have nearly been a red card in some games this year. Perhaps the broken nose and 50 stitches he required later was considered punishment enough for his recklessness?

When you sit back for 90 minutes, content to surrender field position and possession to your opposition, and hope for a bit of luck, you can hardly complain about being robbed of a result. Any team who has all of the ball, spends all their time in your half is always more likely to get the little bits of good luck go their way at the right end of the park. And it wasn't a "dive" as such, he overbalanced from his clumsy airswing at the ball and fell over. Not sure if that's even worse/more embarrassing than a dive!

As for the atmosphere it was great inside the stadium. I was next to the Brisbane active support section (The Den) and they were pretty loud all night apart from probably the 70th-80th minutes when things were looking a little grim. I'd have thought that was the time to be getting louder to try and lift the team, but there was a palpable sense of anxiety around the stadium that the crappy own goal was going to decide the match. Perth had about 2500 fans crammed into the away section and made a respectable amount of noise as well. Considering they had to fly 3500km on a week's notice to watch the game, full credit to them.

And yes, its a little embarrassing to have 50,000 fans turn up for the final, when Brisbane can normally only draw 12-15K for their home games. They love a big event in Brisbane, and yes lots of bandwagon fans show up for one game a year. But, there are other reasons. I have a six hour or more round-trip to see Brisbane play so I not surprisingly have only got to the stadium twice this season. I suspect there's a lot more like me who made the effort for this game.

The league here is quite similar to MLS in a lot of ways. We're still going through the same "damn these stadium costs will send us broke" phase that MLS has now overcome. Sadly I think the smaller economic base here means we'll never really overcome that hurdle and it'll limit the potential of the league to be any bigger than it is now.