Adelaide’s captain twice deployed his brilliant left foot to destroy the dreams of the Mariners, writes Tom Smithies at Coopers Stadium.
Two touches, two goals. Two moments of quality that in the end were just too good.
Those two flashes from Craig Goodwin separated Adelaide from Central Coast, and separated a player of class and potency from those around him.
For all the sound and fury, for all the 90 minutes of running and chasing, it was the ability of Goodwin to rise above the fray that means United are into a semifinal and the Mariners season is over.
The visitors were the better side in the sense that they controlled swathes of the game, played the better football and looked rather more at ease in the tumult of an elimination final.
But in the grip of two well-marshalled defences, one mis-kicked pass and the skid of a ball on wet turf momentarily threw everyone – except Goodwin. And in that moment of execution, that flash of quality to score the crucial first goal, contests are won and lost.
At 30, Goodwin is in the prime of his career; the raging favourite for the Johnny Warren Medal, captain of his club, and consistently producing key and decisive moments. He has talked openly about his mental determination, the will to win and will to impose himself on games, and this was the perfect illustration of that.
For much of the game, until he was forced off with injury, Lewis Miller was man-marking Goodwin in captivating style. Central Coast’s exciting young right back marries defensive physicality with a winger’s technique on the ball, and raced to Goodwin’s side when one of the Socceroo’s team-mates so much as looked at him for a pass.
Goodwin’s frustration became clear when he executed a petulant foul on Miller as payback for several he had suffered himself from various Mariners players. And then, 26 minutes in, as the Mariners pushed forward, Adelaide centre-back Alexandar Popovic intercepted the ball and tried to play Goodwin through.
In fact he miskicked, and the disappointment was written on his face for a moment. But the accidental spin wrongfooted Cameron Windust, making just the third start of his professional career, the ball skidded off the turf and Windust’s feet slipped. Suddenly Goodwin was through on goal; letting the ball run across his body, he passed it into the bottom corner.
“He’s a top player but I thought we nullified their threat a lot – it was just the key moments,” lamented Mariners boss Nick Montgomery. “Cam Windust should have dropped off a little bit earlier, it wasn’t even a good through ball, it was just a nothing ball that skidded off the surface and he got his body shape wrong.”
The fact that Adelaide went into half-time ahead hardly reflected the balance of play. The Mariners midfield, with a central pairing aged 19 and 21, instinctively looks forward. They take risks in possession to try to engineer space and the result has been a prolific scoring record. But Adelaide’s defence was deep, multi-layered and diligent; if it was disappointing to see the home side in a final sit back and play counterattacking football, the results justified the means.
There might have been more questions asked of Adelaide boss Carl Veart’s tactics if Jason Cummings hadn’t been fractionally offside in equalising, before Adelaide added more goals; there certainly should be questions asked of the referee Daniel Elder’s decision to restart the game when Miller had limped off injured, but before the Mariners could bring on a replacement.
Suddenly, as Adelaide broke forward, Goodwin was in acres of space right where the rightback should have been. That left boot sent in the perfect cross for Kusini Yengi to sidefoot in the game’s second goal. The dip and curve on the cross were sublime, and once more Goodwin had seized the moment.
“Even just in this last three or four months since he’s got the captaincy here, he has even stepped his game up another level,” noted Veart. “He’s really vocal now and in the change room a lot more than what he was before.
“With that maturity now he is taking his game to the next level and, and he keeps providing goals and assists for us. And hopefully he can do that all the way through the final series.”
For the kids scattered throughout the Mariners side, the review of this game will show them the difference that quality can make when the game is in the balance. They have had a phenomenal season, and Montgomery was rightly proud of them, but Goodwin’s career is a good illustration of what the journey to the top can look like.
His talent was always there, enough to earn moves to Holland and the Middle East, but with experience comes a smoothing out of the fluctuations in form and output which are common in young players.
“The last three or four games he hasn’t had much of an impact in games,” said Veart. “But you know the quality that he has. The assist, the ball in for the second goal was top class. It was a difficult night for him, they targeted him a few times, there’s quite a few players that have run into him and blocked his running. I suppose in the end, he won the battle because he got a goal and an assist.”
Those take Goodwin to 10 goals and eight assists for the season, but you suspect he will need more if Adelaide are to threaten Melbourne City on Wednesday.
For the Mariners, the season is done, Montgomery’s first as a head coach already well in credit. “I’m really proud of the boys have the way they have fought,” he said. “The way they played today, you know a very young team. We just didn’t get the run of the green today and a couple of mistakes ended up in the back of the net so that’s football.
“We proved everybody wrong and we’ll come back stronger next year. We’ll strengthen the squad and I can’t wait to get back next year.”
