‘I’ve been doing that pretty much my whole life… I was just waiting for it to happen on the big stage!’: Armiento thunderbolt steals the show

Carlo Armiento, take a bow.

With Brisbane Roar needing a moment of brilliance to rescue a point, Armiento answered the call, scoring one of the great goals of the Isuzu UTE A-League season thus far, to snatch a 1-1 draw against Western Sydney Wanderers on Friday evening.

The 23-year-old winger has been in some form since arriving at the Roar and has shown glimpses of his enormous potential throughout the opening few weeks of the season.

However, there was nothing more impressive than how he took his goal to level proceedings.

Armiento picked the ball up quite a fair way out from goal, before creating enough separation from his direct opponent Gabriel Cleur and firing home an unstoppable long-range effort.

Incredibly, the shot looked to be going right at Wanderers goal-keeper Lawrence Thomas, but such was the power in the shot that it dovetailed away from the shot-stopper at the last second to find its way into the back of the net.

“I think I’ve been doing that pretty much my whole life now so I’ve just been waiting for that to happen on the big stage and finally it pulled off,” Armiento told Paramount Plus.

Before arriving at the Roar, Armiento was on the sidelines for all of last season after tearing his ACL in his final campaign at Perth Glory.

It’s been a long road back for the ultra-talented winger, who credited his former employers for getting back up to scratch this season.

“Credit to Perth Glory and their physio, and their strength and conditioning coaches there,” Armiento said.

“I spent a whole year in Perth and they got me up right… I ended up here and now, I’m just showing what I can do on the big stage.”

But for Armiento, he would rather trade that in for an elusive third win of the season, as Brisbane’s draw meant it was the fifth time (league high) the Roar only came away with a single point this season.

“It was not bad, I would rather swap it for the three points,” Armiento said.

“I think in the first half we came out a bit sleepy, but the second half, we showed that we can match them. So yeah, happy with the goal but disappointed about the result.”

Meanwhile, Western Sydney’s lean run continued post FIFA Men’s World Cup break, falling to a third straight game without a win since returning to action.

Oliver Bozanic, who just debuted with the club after the break, fired home the opener and his first goal in Wanderers colours.

In the end, the Wanderers were unable to kick-on after their promising start to the game, falling away in the second-half as Brisbane gained the ascendancy.

“Second half, we just weren’t as good as the first-half,” Bozanic told Paramount Plus.

“We copped that goal which put us at 1-1, so we really need to defend that lead and then try and score another in the second-half. We came close with a couple of opportunities, but yeah, we just didn’t finish it.”