Sydney FC coach Steve Corica has been left to ponder his side’s frustrating A-League Men 1-1 draw with Brisbane Roar in which the hosts squandered a number of opportunities to grab victory.
After the Sky Blues secured an FFA Cup semi-final spot by beating the Roar earlier in the week, they were unable to engineer a repeat performance at Kogarah Oval on Saturday night.
Elvis Kamsoba’s searing run set up Anthony Caceres for Sydney’s opener before Nikola Mileusnic levelled up for Warren Moon’s side in the 41st minute.
Sydney had chances late on to snatch a winner but Brisbane held firm to secure their second point of the campaign.
“I’m a little bit disappointed we didn’t get all three points tonight,” Corica said.
“We really dominated that first half and we got the goal and then we gave away a sloppy one towards the end of the first half.
“We had three one-on-ones with the keeper in the second half, Patrick Wood had one and Harry (Van der Saag) had two to steal the game for us, but we just couldn’t take them.”
Sydney took the lead when Kamsoba seized possession deep in his own half and burst across the half-way line.
The forward avoided a couple of covering challenges to thread an inch-perfect ball through a sea of bodies towards Caceres, who finished clinically in the 34th minute.
But no sooner had Sydney begun to assert their dominance when they struggled to clear a routine ball out of their own penalty area.
A jostling Juan Lescano helped force the ball into the path of Mileusnic who was able to get a shot away.
Andrew Redmayne got across but was unable to turn the ball round the post as Mileusnic’s effort fizzed off the keeper’s hand and into the net.
After the break Brisbane sought to rely on counter attacks and set-pieces to threaten the Sydney goal and it was clear they were struggling having not played in a month.
Corica deployed new recruit Mustafa Amini who looked lively in his 15-minute cameo.
Van der Saag, Wood and Max Burgess had chances for a Sydney equaliser but none of them could find a breakthrough.
“The landscape has changed for us a bit and I said to the group it was about performance,” Moon said.
“We have put in two good performances away from home under difficult circumstances.
“We were good on Wednesday (in the Cup) with no luck and I thought we were good tonight and that (a draw) was just reward to get something out of the game.”
