Stand-in Sydney FC skipper Stuart Musialik has expressed his frustration at the theatrics of opponents Shanghai Shenhua in their AFC Champions League clash on Wednesday night, labelling their tactics as ‘garbage’.
The Sky Blues missed the opportunity to cement themselves in second spot in their group after they were held to a 1-1 draw by the Chinese Super League club at the SFS.
Despite dominating the contest for long periods, Vitezslav Lavicka’s troops were left to rue a number of wasted chances as they dropped two points at home for the second time in as many games.
After overcoming the setback of conceding an early goal, Sydney hit back through Nicky Carle in the first half and looked to be pushing for a well-deserved win in the second half.
But the home side struggled to maintain their rhythm and momentum late on as the match was continually halted as a number of Shanghai players needed to get medical treatment.
“It was frustrating but it was just important for us to ignore it and switch off what they were doing and make sure we kept switched on and pressuring,” Musialik said.
“If we got caught up in that we could have lost our way but to our boys credit we didn’t get caught up in any garbage and kept our mind on what our goal was.”
“It does get frustrating but it’s out of our control isn’t it?”
“All you can do is make sure you ignore it and keep your mind on the job and we did that.”
While disappointed to have seen his side waste the opportunity to grab a vital win on their home turf and boost their chances of progression to the knockout phase, Lavicka conceded his side could blame no one but themselves after failing to find a second goal.
“Most of game we kept possession but we didn’t have the quality enough in attacking third,” the Sydney boss said.
“We did plenty of crossing but there wasn’t good enough quality to penetrate them and they blocked many strike attempts as well.”
“We created chances but we expected more than one point from this game.”
“It’s frustrating … we didn’t score the second goal so we can’t be satisfied.”
Shanghai coach Zhikang Xi was proud of his side’s defensive effort, especially after losing co-captains Tao Yu and Dalei Wang to injury before the match.
“I knew it would be a hard game before the match but we were well prepared and played hard and showed the team work, I’m very satisfied with it,” he said.
“Players are often injured before the match but it gives an opportunity for other players to come in and I though they did well tonight.”
Both sides remain on two points, three behind leaders Suwon Bluewings who also drew 1-1 on Wednesday night.
Sydney are back in action again at the SFS next Wednesday night when they take on J-League club Kashima Antlers in a rescheduled match following the Japanese earthquake and tsunami disaster.
And despite their still being another three games to go following that encounter, Sydney Musialik concedes his side must win that to have any chance of making the knockout stage.
“We want to get as many points as we can at home and tonight was definitely a game that slipped away,” he said.
“So next week is definitely one we have to win.”
