Perth Glory has won its second straight Hyundai A-League game at home with Branko Jelic scoring two goals in a 2-1 win over Melbourne Victory at ME Bank Stadium on Friday night.
The Glory and Jelic opened the scoring after just five minutes, but then the Victory controlled the rest of the first half and majority of the match. They got an equaliser in the ninth minute through Archie Thompson, but weren’t able to get another beyond Tando Velaphi despite plenty of chances.
It was again Perth and Jelic who broke the deadlock in the 54th minute and it was a memorable night for the 32-year-old with his first two goals for Perth in his first Hyundai A-League season.
The Glory move into the top four with two straight wins at home after two losses away to start the season, while the Victory have a win, a draw and two losses from the four games.
The Glory got off to the ideal start when Jelic ended up putting the ball past Glen Moss after a free kick and a mad scramble in the box with several Glory players having an opportunity.
Naum Sekulovski took the free kick and Chris Coyne and Mile Sterjovski had a go at getting the ball into the net, but Jelic was the successful one.
It only served to kick the Victory into gear though. Immediately afterwards, the visitors got forward to create three chances by getting in behind the Glory defence and it only took until the ninth minute for Thompson to score and make the scores 1-1.
Danny Allsopp found some space down the left side, passed in-field to Thompson instead of taking a shot and after Thompson’s first shot was blocked right on the line by Sekulovski, he followed it up to dribble it home.
The Victory’s dominance continued for the rest of the half with the Glory giving them far too much space in the midfield and that in turn helped Thompson, Allsopp, Carlos Hernandez and Ney Fabiano look dangerous forward.
Hernandez blew a shot wide, Thompson had one that went high, Hernandez created another good opportunity that was saved by Tando Velaphi and then Fabiano had the best of all just before half-time.
He was able to get in behind the Glory defence and had just Velaphi to beat, but wasn’t able to do so and Perth’s keeper made a good save. The Glory had one chance before the break with Andy Todd unable to get a header off a corner from Adriano Pellegrino past Moss.
Somewhat surprisingly it was the Glory that broke the deadlock in the 54th minute when Jelic scored his second. Sterjovski headed the ball along and Jelic was able to put the ball in the back of the net.
The Glory were enjoying a good run of play and had a golden chance for a third goal when Wayne Srhoj made beautiful connection on a strike, but it sailed agonisingly wide.
Perth fans enjoyed the sight of Brazilian midfielder Amaral in his first game of the season when he came on in the 79th minute.
The Glory head back on the road to play the Central Coast Mariners at Canberra Stadium on Friday night, while the Victory return to Melbourne for two games at Etihad Stadium against Newcastle and Wellington.
Perth Glory 2 (Jelic 5′, 54′)
Melbourne Victory 1 (Thompson 9′)
Crowd: 8057 at ME Bank Stadium.
