A-League elimination final match review: Adelaide United v. Brisbane at Adelaide

The first match of this season’s A-League finals was a superb display of attacking association football by both sides, and one felt disappointed that only one of them could go on to fight another day.

The excitement began in the seventh minute, when Craig Goodwin curled in a spectacular free kick (at a distance later measured at 27.7 metres) to put the hosts 1-0 up. The same player nearly doubled the lead seven minutes later when Sergio Cirio put him through on goal. There followed more Adelaide chances, and just as many Brisbane counter-attacks, before Dylan McGowan failed to clear the ball from defence, allowing the on-rushing Thomas Broich to steal the ball and put himself one-on-one with the keeper.

Though their coach is Catalan, there was nothing tiki-taka about Adelaide’s play; their verticality and gegenpressing instead evoking antipodean echoes of Borussia Dortmund. Brisbane, too, defended solidly and then moved the ball forward with the minimum possible number of passes.

The second half opened at a slightly slower tempo, and la roja looked somewhat less dangerous at set pieces. Both clubs made substitutions; Adelaide traded Marcelo Carrusca for target man Awer Mabil, while the Roar brought on Costa Rican import Jean Carlos Solórzano. Matters then began to proceed at the ferocity of the first half: a seventy-third-minute through ball to Pablo Sánchez and a seventy-fifth-minute corner which caused a commotion in the box made Adelaide look the likelier side; this impression was furthered when Cirio settled and had his shot saved in the eightieth minute.

The men in orange, however, weren’t finished yet. Two minutes later, Solórzano set up Andrija Kaluđerović who crashed into Reds’ keeper Eugene Galekovic, followed closely by captain Matt McKay having a crack himself. But it was Adelaide’s off-the-ball work which won them the match. Miguel Palanca, earlier substituted on for countryman Sánchez, stole the ball from an oranje attacker in his own half with three minutes of regulation time left on the clock. He combined with Cirio to counter-attack forward, and it was his cut-back from the goal line which found Mabil. Former English youth international goleiro Jamie Young, who had been magnificent all night, was unlucky here in getting only his fingertips on the ball, and the Reds found themselves heading to the Sydney Football Stadium for a blockbuster preliminary final.

Adelaide United 2 (Goodwin 7’; Mabil 87’) – Brisbane 1 (Broich 27’)