Marco Tilio’s magnificent end-to-end goal was the highlight of Melbourne City’s 3-2 win over Sydney FC – and according to City head coach Rado Vidosic, the young gun is ready to make the jump and produce similar “magic” moments overseas.
Gaining possession outside his own penalty area, Tilio drove the length of the field before hammering home a long-range effort to make it 2-0 on Saturday, his fourth goal of the season.
The 21-year-old Socceroo went on to register a fifth assist for the campaign, when he seized on a turnover from Rhyan Grant and cut the ball back for Jamie Maclaren to net his second goal of the day and cancel out Robert Mak’s strike for Sydney moments before.
It was Maclaren’s 138th Isuzu UTE A-League goal, leaving him four shy of Besart Berisha’s all-time record.
“(Tilio is) ready to go overseas,” Vidosic said.
“But he doesn’t need to rush into some league or club where they’re not going to play a way that suits him.
“I’m quite sure wherever he ends up he’s going to produce magic like he did today.”
Vidosic may have been impressed by Tilio, but he was not pleased with his side’s overall first half – despite them ending it 3-1 to the good.
“From a performance point of view, it just wasn’t good enough,” he said.
Sydney’s Diego Caballo netted the only goal of the second period to reduce the arrears in added time
“In the second half, we created some good opportunities, we had some good situations and we controlled the game better than in the first half,” Vidosic said.
Sydney boss Steve Corica lamented a slow start that left his side down 2-0 inside 13 minutes, as well as a perceived failure to dismiss City midfielder Richard van der Venne.
VAR had referee Shaun Evens re-examine a 55th-minute incident in which the Dutchman’s arms made contact with Luke Brattan to see if he had missed a red-card offence.
Evans opted to issue Van der Venne a yellow, which he is allowed to do once VAR re-opens examination of an incident.
“The most disappointing thing in that game (was that) we gave them the opportunity to score two goals early on,” Corica said.
“For me, it’s a red card (for Van der Venne)
“From what I saw of the replay … it looked like he elbowed him in the face.
“In other games, that’s a red card.”
It was not all good news for City, who suffered a blow before kick-off when Mat Leckie was scratched with a hamstring injury.
Vidosic said he was hopeful the Socceroos star would recover in a fortnight, but there are fears the winger may miss up to six weeks.
