Adelaide United and Auckland FC have played out a thrilling 1-1 draw at Coopers Stadium as the battle at the summit approaches its climax.
Ethan Alagich slammed home the opener after 25 minutes but Felipe Gallegos responded with a cracking volley to equalise in the second half. The drama built and built but even after 100 minutes of football the teams couldn’t be separated.
Adelaide’s fourth 1-1 draw in their last five games leaves them in third and means that the gap to second-placed Auckland stays at four points. For the Black Knights, they’ve made up a little ground on Newcastle at the top – separated from the leaders by just three points.
The energy had been building in the opening 25 minutes and it was let loose when Jonny Yull’s shot seemed to strike an arm inside the area, but with arms in red sleeves still waving for a penalty, Ethan Alagich met the rebound with a venomous, left-footed strike that found the bottom right corner from outside the area.
Sam Cosgrove responded by testing out Joshua Smits with a driven shot from range that brought a sharp, diving save from the Adelaide keeper.
Lachlan Brook’s return to Adelaide was not going to plan in the first half and it only got worse when he broke down the right flank, closed in on goal but blazed his shot high and wide with players in support.
Adelaide were caught napping just minutes after the break when Callan Elliot was found on the overlap and swung in a cross that drifted away from the crowded Cosgrove and found Felipe Gallegos who cracked it in on the volley to make it 1-1.
Smits was called into action again when Auckland manufactured a great chance for Guillermo May. The Uruguayan spun inside the area and fired in a shot but Smits stuck out a strong arm and it fell to Brook who was well offside.
An already fiery match had its biggest flashpoint with just minutes to play when Brody Burkitt was on the receiving end of a two-footed lunge from the returning Hiroki Sakai. He was shown a yellow card and when the VAR took a closer look, they stuck with the on-field decision but found that May was guilty of unsporting conduct in the fallout and he too was cautioned.
In the fifth minute of stoppage time, Auckland’s debutant goalkeeper James Hilton parried Burkitt’s shot into the path of Luka Jovanovic, but was sharp enough to dive on the ball and smother the chance with the clock ticking down.
With the last touch of the game, Luke Dezel whipped a cross onto the head of Anselmo who dipped low to meet it with his head but the effort spun wide and the match ended 1-1.
MATCH HIGHLIGHTS
WHAT THEY SAID
Lachlan Brook
Steve Corica
Airton Andrioli
