Adelaide United have defeated a youthful Sydney FC side 4-2 in a pre season friendly match at Marconi Stadium.
Adelaide United have defeated a youthful Sydney FC side 4-3 in a pre season friendly match at Marconi Stadium.
Missing half their squad, though injury and international duty, it was Sydney who struck first when Yau scored with a neat header in the 12th minute.
The visitors levelled the scores in the 30th minute when a speculative strike from Bruce Djite took a deflection off Sebastian Ryall, wrong-footing Ivan Necevski and looping into the empty net.
Both sides played some good football through the middle stages of the first half as they exploited the wide areas. The Sky Blues continued to look good down both flanks with the pace of Yau causing trouble on the right and Fabio overlapping well down the left.
Just before the half time break it was Adelaide who turned an opportunity into a goal when Cassio cut inside down the left hand side and slotted the ball under the body of Necevski to make it 2-1 in the 45th minute.
Crook then made six changes at half time, injecting five teenagers from the Australian Institute of Sport into the action as well as Vedran Janjetovic, who replaced Necevski between the sticks.
Adelaide also made several changes at half time as coach John Kosmina had one eye on the upcoming champions league tie against Bunyodkor.
The changes affected the flow of the match although the Sydney FC youngsters did cause a few problems. Adelaide also had their chances in the second half and scored a third goal through Cameron Watson in the 83rd minute.
Sydney youngster MItch Mallia breathed some late life into the match with a well-deserved goal in the 88th minute when he surged past the Adelaide defence and blasted the ball into the roof of the net to make it 3-2.
But Adelaide put the game to bed in the final minute with Evan Kostopoulos adding a fourth for the Reds.
