Emotion flowed for Macarthur’s captain and his team-mates after lifting the Australia Cup, writes Tom Smithies at CommBank Stadium.
After all the dire warnings of torrential rain before the final, it was a flood of emotion that lapped around the heels of Macarthur’s players in the wake of winning an historic first trophy.
Secured ironically from a performance of discipline and control, the fact of becoming winners uncorked tears for the Bulls far beyond the normal sensations of victory – driven by a tale of real tragedy overshadowing the sporting narratives.
The choice of Macarthur captain Ulises Davila for man of the match was hugely symbolic after his industry, prompting and leadership were pivotal to his side’s 2-0 defeat of Sydney United in the Australia Cup final.
Four months after his wife, Lily Pacheco, died shockingly and suddenly, emotion drenched Davila and his team-mates like the pre-match sprinklers as the final whistle sounded. Davila himself sank into the arms of the Macarthur team manager and stayed there. His tears sparked others, with Al Hassan Toure trying and failing to wipe them away as he spoke to a TV audience about the support his teammates have provided to Davila.
Davila himself ran to the crowd to find his son and carried him into the midst of the celebrations; minutes later he was lifting the Australia Cup as leader of a team that deserved to win for football reasons as well as the sentimental narrative.
The prospect of a cupset was a beguiling idea before the game, but never looked like a realistic prospect once the first whistle kicked things off. United’s blueprint was clearly predicated on staying in the game, hoping to snatch something on the break and then throw their experienced campaigners into the fray in the second half.
To a degree it succeeded, in that the margin between the teams was just a single goal until the game’s dying moments, and yet Macarthur never looked discomforted. A first trophy in the club’s third season was earned through a mentality of never looking overawed by the occasion, let alone their opponents.
The project unfolding under Dwight Yorke in his debut weeks as a head coach is fascinating. Yorke himself says he has yet to work in any detail on the attacking patterns, preferring until now to build structure from defence forward.
And yet he has a brilliant array of attacking talent at his disposal, and they will be as formidable a forward line as any in the A-League once the disparate parts find game rhythm playing together.
The only concern is the lack of a natural goalscorer to convert the chances they will inevitably create, but here – albeit against an NPL side clearly weary and unable to own the occasion – they showed the patterns of play that will underpin this side going forward.
At the heart of much of it was Daniel De Silva and this is one of the most intriguing parts of the Yorke project. Since exploding on to the scene as a 16-year-old winger at Perth, De Silva has too often flattered to deceive – keen on providing the hero moment, but rarely changing the course of a game.
Now, at 25, maybe the teen has become a man. His energy levels were extraordinary, switching positions in the 93rd minute to try to find space but seconds later sprinting to make a recovery run once the ball was lost. But most of all De Silva’s movement was a masterclass, beating players by dint of his positioning to receive the ball in places that had already bypassed his nearest opponents.
Like Davila he also saw the value in a simple pass when it was the right option, but played almost everyone with the perfect weight. If he stays fit and in this mindset, De Silva is an early candidate for the Johnny Warren Medal.
But all that is to come, and all of the Macarthur team deserve to enjoy the acclaim of winning a trophy. For Sydney United, the disappointment of this loss is compounded by the likely sanctions coming their way from the behaviour of their fans. From the disruption of the Welcome to Country to the offensive chanting and banners, a section of United’s support couldn’t resist the childish urge to enjoy the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.
For the players it is particularly galling, for conversations going forward will be about the behaviour of a group of fans and what it means for developments like a National Second Division, rather than the team’s achievement in becoming the first NPL side to make the Australia Cup Final.
Their run to this game had been uplifting, and the 2022 Australia Cup is littered with their moments. At the crunch it looked like a game too far, an occasion they couldn’t meet, and Macarthur were simply too good.
