Sydney FC winger Joe Lolley moved to the top of the Isuzu UTE A-League Golden Boot leaderboard with a second-half hat-trick in a 3-0 win over Perth Glory on Wednesday night.
The Englishman produced his first-ever A-Leagues hat-trick after a frustrating first half for the hosts, in which an under-pressure Glory defence desperately fought to keep their clean sheet intact.
But Lolley took control of the contest after the break, scoring in the 52nd, 70th and 88th minute to help the hosts cruise to victory, and move within one point of Western United in sixth.
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With his eighth goal of the campaign and his 26th Isuzu UTE A-League goal for Sydney FC, Lolley moved two goals clear in the 2024-25 Golden Boot race, and two goals ahead of Italian legend Alessandro Del Piero (24 goals) on Sydney’s all-time league top-scorers list.
Post-game, Sydney head coach Ufuk Talay, who played 92 games in the Isuzu UTE A-League before stepping into management, was asked where he believed Lolley ranks among the best players the league has ever seen.
“Close to me!” Talay joked.
“No, Joe I think is a special visa player that’s come across. The hardest thing with visa players is (whether) they come over with the right intentions, and Joe’s come over with the right intentions.
“I think he’s quite entertaining for our league, he’s quite entertaining for the fans and also very influential with what he does with the ball and the work rate that he does have off the ball.”
The Sky Blues dominated the first half but were unable to translate their dominance into a half-time lead; Ufuk Talay’s side had 14 shots to Perth’s two through the opening 45 minutes at Allianz Stadium but put just four of those 14 attempts on target.
Sydney’s best chance of the first half came in the first minute of stoppage time when a calamitous error from Glory keeper Oli Sail presented the ball Anthony Caceres who, while falling over the byline, put a left-footed shot on target.
Young Glory defender Andriano Lebib reacted quickly to Sail’s mistake and scrambled back to the goal line where he made a sliding intervention to poke the ball around the post and out for a corner.
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After a frustrating first half, Sydney FC came out swinging after the break and took just seven minutes to find the opening goal.
The space presented to Lolley to shoot after his attempted one-two with Caceres was snuffed out by Zach Lisolajski – but the ball fell kindly to the Englishman to score his fourth goal in three games.
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But Glory responded well to falling behind, and Trent Ostler came within centimetres of an equalising goal just minutes after Lolley’s opener. Ostler collected the ball in the box and fended off two challengers before whipping a strike on the turn just past the right-hand goalpost.
With the game in the balance, a penalty awarded to the hosts led to Sydney taking a two-goal lead – an advantage that proved unassailable for Glory.
The penalty was awarded for a handball originally not given by on-field referee Sam Kelly, after a flick-on in the box from Patryk Klimala struck the hand of Lebib who had slid in to try and divert the Sydney striker’s attempt away from goal.
But after advice from VAR to review the incident on the pitchside monitor, Kelly returned to the field of play to explain his final decision via live comms.
“After on-field review, the defender’s body is unnaturally bigger by the position of the arm. The decision is penalty,” he said.
Lolley put the ball on the spot and bent his penalty into the top-left corner to make it 2-0 to the Sky Blues.
It was Lolley’s seventh goal of the season, and a strike that send the Sydney star to the top of the Isuzu UTE A-League Golden Boot leaderboard.
With just two minutes of regular time to play, Lolley found himself in the right place at the right time to tuck home his hat-trick goal after a save from Sail fell directly into his path in the six-yard box.
