Sydney FC were beaten 1-0 by the North Queensland Fury at Dairy Farmers Stadium on Wednesday night with a set piece strike from Ufuk Talay in the 71st minute splitting the two teams.
Sydney FC were beaten 1-0 by the North Queensland Fury at Dairy Farmers Stadium on Wednesday night with a set piece strike from Ufuk Talay in the 71st minute splitting the two teams.
After a quiet first 65 minutes, entertaining North Queensland Fury manager Franz Straka urged his home fans to life from the touchlines with animated displays of passion, producing an immense burst of noise and momentum. Just four minutes later, a free-kick from Talay bobbled out of the hands of Ivan Necevski and into the home teams- net and it was a lead the Fury managed to hold on to.
The Sky Blues next match is a December 23 showdown with the Melbourne Heart at the Sydney Football Stadium (7:30pm kick-off).
Sydney-s best chance of the first term came in the 11thminute, when Terry McFlynn found himself high up the field and in an acre of space after intercepting a tame pass. His ball across the face of goal in search of Dimitri Petratos was however intercepted by Mark Hughes.
Sydney struggled to break down North Queensland after that, and an imposing Fury defence left the Sky Blues trying their hand at shots from outside the area. Mark Bridge-s attempt to finish off a clever move from Petratos called Justin Pasfield into action and Sung Hwan Byun-s effort from a long way out was also comfortably saved.
Gareth Edds almost opened the scoring in the 20th minute, after a spell of dominance from Sydney, with a shot blazing just wide of the target after a teasing cross-field run from livewire David Williams.
The North Queensland heat was evident in the flow of the game, as Sydney sat back and worked the ball around from deep. Provocative runs from Petratos down the right were an obvious area of attack for the Sky Blues.
A frustrated Sydney had another attempt from outside the penalty area through the boot of Hiro Moriyasu blocked. Not long after, Petratos tried to take matters into his own hands with his 35-yard effort which sailed over the crossbar.
North Queensland offered up similar long range efforts from Williams and Simon Storey, both which sailed wide and finished promising build-ups and saw scores locked at 0-0 at halftime.
Sydney started the second half with an obvious intent to attack, and a wonderful link-up between Petratos and Bridge, after the youngster got on the end of a pin-point Stuart Musialik pass, led to a cross only just intercepted by the head of Hughes ahead of Moriyasu. Just minutes later, Bruno Cazarine-s long through-ball found Bridge, who easily evaded Osama Malik, but the Fury defender redeemed his honour by deflecting Bridge-s shot wide.
With Franz Straka firing up the home crowd in the 67th minute, a free-kick from the Fury caused frantic pinball scenes in the box as Sydney FC did their best to avoid the ball finding its way into the back of the net.
Despite achieving their aim, the Straka-evoked excitement didn-t die down as the Fury continued riding their random spur of momentum in the 71st minute. Talay-s shot from another free-kick went straight to Ivan Necevski, but the Sydney keeper managed to misjudge the flight of the shot.
It was a morale-crushing blow for Sydney FC after looking the more-likely side to take the lead earlier in the half.
As Straka re-fired up the Fury crowd in the 86th minute, the home side didn-t echo their coach-s enthusiasm as they took the ball to the corner in an attempt to run down the clock. But they were almost embarrassed as their time-wasting tactics looked to be premature when, just a minute later, an Alex Brosque header didn-t go far wide of the target.
On the counter attack, North Queensland had a chance to seal the match when they found themselves with a four on two overlap, but a slow decision making cost the Fury a chance to double their lead.
The miss didn-t matter though, as North Queensland Fury completed a 1-0 win over Sydney FC in the hot conditions, pushing them off the bottom of the table and leap-frogging last season-s Hyundai A-League Champions on the table.
Match Details:
Sydney FC: 0
North Queensland Fury: 1 (Ufuk TALAY 71-)
Sydney FC squad: 2. Sebastian RYALL, 3. Stephan KELLER, 6. Hirofumi MORIYASU, 8. Stuart MUSIALIK (23. Scott JAMIESON 80-), 9. Bruno CAZARINE (14. Alex BROSQUE 62-), 12. Shannon COLE, 15. Terry MCFLYNN (c), 19. Mark BRIDGE, 20. Ivan NECEVSKI (gk), 22. Sung-Hwan BYUN, 24. Dimitri PETRATOS.
Substitutes not used: 1. Liam REDDY (gk), 17. Matt JURMAN
Yellow cards: 12. Shannon COLE 67-, 6. Hirofumi MORIYASU
Red cards: Nil
North Queensland Fury squad: 1. Justin PASFIELD (gk), 2. Jack HINGERT (10. Dyron DAAL 52-), 3. Brad MCDONALD, 5. Mark HUGHES, 6. Ufuk TALAY (c), 7. Gareth EDDS, 11. David WILLIAMS, 12. Panny NIKAS, 16.Simon STOREY, 17. Osama MALIK (24. Ramazan TAVSANCIOGLU 52-), 21. Jason SPAGNUOLO (15. Chris PAYNE 73-).
Substitutes not used: 28. Sebastian USAI (gk)
Yellow cards: 5. Mark HUGHES 8-, 12. Panny NIKAS 15-,
Red cards: Nil
