Brisbane Roar have made Australian sporting history after they extended their magical unbeaten run to a record 36 games with an amazing 4-0 demolition of Perth at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday night.
Brisbane Roar have made Australian sporting history after they extended their magical unbeaten run to a record 36 games with an amazing 4-0 demolition of Perth at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday night.
The defending Hyundai A-League champions were never in doubt against the Glory, executing the same untouchable pass-and-move football that has left the rest of the competition in their wake for over a year.
The win means the Roar have now surpassed the previous record of 35 games without a loss which has been held by Eastern Suburbs in the NSWRL for 74 years.
It is a fitting accolade for a team who have shown an unwavering commitment to Ange Postecoglou’s simple yet elegant brand of football which was firing on all cylinders in a first-half master class led by Besart Berisha and Issey Nakajima-Farran.
If there were any doubts over whether the Roar would be able to cope with the pressure of the record, they did their best to answer them early on a rainy evening in Brisbane.
Just five minutes in, Henrique squeezed himself into a one-on-one with Glory goalkeeper Danny Vukovic with only a desperate intervention from Josh Mitchell stopped him from finding the net.
The Brazilian’s early involvement was just a harbinger of what was to come from the Roar’s international contingent.
The first goal came in the 23rd minute and it started the way most Brisbane Roar attacks do – from the back.
After strangling possession from the Glory, captain Matt Smith pressed forward with the ball and dished off to Henrique whose clever back-heel unleashed Thomas Broich in behind the defence on the left.
With Berisha lurking at the back post, Broich fired in a perfect low cross and the Albanian predator provided a simple finish to thump the ball into the bottom corner.
Perth started well enough and forced the Roar into coughing up possession on more than one occasion, but they were unable to hold onto the ball long enough to disrupt Brisbane’s fluency.
However, Berisha’s first goal – yet another scored from inside the six-yard box – clearly put the Glory on the back foot and dampened any Perth hopes of toppling the Brisbane juggernaut.
Those same hopes were emphatically stamped out 10 minutes later though Nakajima-Farran.
Broich was again the provider, picking out the Canadian international with a lovely looping pass over Perth’s back four.
But Nakajima-Farran’s run was just as exquisite and once he met Broich’s pass, he was clear on goal.
Taking one touch to control the ball, his second sent the crowd of 19,339 into raptures.
Four minutes before the break, he had his brace. This time he was fortunate that the deflection from Ivan Franjic’s return pass landed right in his path, but again his near-post finish was enough to cap off another brilliant Brisbane move.
Completing the first-half rout was the man who started it, Berisha.
He was the beneficiary of more fluid Roar passing, and again the movement involved Henrique and Broich.
Once they delivered him the ball, he clinically blasted it into the roof of the net for his ninth of the season.
Indicative of the moods of each team, Brisbane were first to emerge from the sheds, as if they couldn’t wait any longer to resume their massacre.
Understandably, Perth were two or three minutes behind them.
When they made it out, they had two fresh faces – Steven McGarry and Andrezinho.
But Glory coach Ian Ferguson could have made all the tactical tweaks in the world and it wouldn’t have made a lick of difference to the score.
This was the Roar’s night, and even though Perth’s second-half plan of damage control stopped the Roar from extending their advantage, there was nothing they could do to spoil their celebrations.
Brisbane Roar 4 (Berisha 23, 45, Nakajima-Farran 33, 41)
Perth Glory 0
Crowd: 19,339 at Suncorp Stadium
