Ange Postecoglou says even Argentine superstar Lionel Messi could not have saved Brisbane Roar from their first defeat in 37 games on Sunday.
Ange Postecoglou says even Argentine superstar Lionel Messi could not have saved Brisbane Roar from their first defeat in 37 games on Sunday.
The Roar’s record-breaking winless streak came to a screeching halt after a fired up Sydney FC scored an upset 2-0 victory in wet and windy conditions at WIN Jubilee Oval.
Brisbane simply had no answer for the Sky Blues, who scored after just 36 seconds through Dimitri Petratos and doubled their lead inside 20 minutes when Brett Emerton produced a miraculous corner kick.
The visitors struggled to find their rhythm throughout the high-octane encounter without gun midfielder Thomas Broich, but Postecoglou refused to make excuses after the loss.
“They’re the beautiful excuses we can all pull out but football’s not that simple, sometimes you meet a better opponent – that’s it,” he said when asked if Broich’s unavailability due to a heel injury was telling.
“It doesn’t matter if we have Thomas or Lionel Messi out there … sometimes the opposition is better than you on the day and they were today so full credit to them.”
“We don’t make excuses, we tried hard enough, the effort was there and we still tried to play our football under different conditions, but it just wasn’t to be.”
“It’s something that you prepare for every week and every week’s been a challenge, we haven’t had it easy and you know that every week if we’re not on our game, depending how the opposition goes, there’s a possibility you lose.”
“It’s all part of sport, it’s part of what we do so it’s not a surprise but it hasn’t happened often to us obviously.”
Pressed on whether he feared his side would suffer an emotional letdown after breaking the record for the most consecutive games without a loss by an Australian team in all codes last week, Postecoglou replied: “No and I don’t think that was really the problem today.”
“Obviously conceding the early goal set us on the back foot a little bit and I thought Sydney were good after that.”
“They were really committed and we didn’t really get into any sort of rhythm during the game, we found it really hard to get it going and credit to Sydney, they stuck to their task and made it difficult for us and fully deserved it.”
The coach also rejected suggestions the loss could be a blessing in disguise.
“It was never a distraction, we never saw it as a distraction, we never saw it as any sort of added pressure, it was just something that was happening because we were doing well,” he said.
“There’s no relief because the record’s over … sometimes when you get on a run like ours people expect you to win all the time but that’s not how sport works.”
“That’s our second loss in 42 games, I mean that’s a fair run we’ve had and we’ve just got to keep going.”
