Wanderers win in Bridge's 200th

The Wanderers defeated a 10-man Adelaide United 2-1 on Saturday night as the evening celebrated Mark Bridge’s 200th game in the Hyundai A-League, and to make it even more special for the veteran, Bridge scored the Wanderers' winning goal that pushed the club into 9th place on the ladder.

The first half saw neither team dominating with a lacklustre performance; not surprising considering both sides play very defensively.

The Wanderers supporter group, the RBB, at the commencement of the match held up a banner reading “Bulut $tays$” in regards to the current rumours circulating about the re-signing of fan favourite Kerem Bulut.

Such rumours were later dismissed in the post-match press conference by coach Tony Popovic.

As for the on-field action, it was only until the very end of the first half when there was finally some action. A breakthrough from former Wanderer Tarek Elrich set the scene for United’s only goal in the match.

Tarek slipped the ball through to Sergio Cirio who sent a fantastic and simply unstoppable strike that put Adelaide into the lead 1-0 at half time.

One could have easily predicted that history would repeat itself for the Wanderers once more. But something very different happened this time.

Perhaps it was the occasion of Mark Bridge’s 200th game or even the desperation to get off the bottom of the table with only one game in the A-League remaining, but the Wanderers were determined and back with a vengeance in the second half.

A surging run by Mateo Poljak split Adelaide’s defence into two and an intelligent pass to Mark Bridge saw him get pulled down in the penalty box by Nigel Boogard. Boogard was shown a red card for the offence and had consequently overtaken Archie “Offside” Thompson as the player with the most send-offs in A-League history.

Tomi Juric then stepped up to take the penalty and perfectly placed the ball into the corner of the goal, equalising for the Red and Black.

It was only 10 minutes later when the Wanderers took an even greater leap; Yojiro Takahagi sent a cross that Juric cleverly lobbed over the top of Adelaide’s defence.

Mark Bridge was left unmarked and fired into the far corner of the goal, scoring the winning goal of the match with the Western Sydney Wanderers defeating Adelaide United 2-1.

Wanderers coach Tony Popovic congratulated Bridge on his significant involvement in the game on the night of his 200th Hyundai A-League match.

“Fantastic for Bridge to celebrate his 200th game with a goal and an assist. I hope he’ll be involved in many big games in the future” Popovic said.

The praise continued for the rest of  Bridge’s teammates by Popovic.

“Tonight is just a pleasing night all round. Good signs going forward, character shown by the player and the youngsters getting game time”.

With the Wanderers now jumping off the bottom of the A-League table, their final position will be tested on Friday evening with the Jets sitting only one point below them when they take on Brisbane Roar. The Wanderers will then be playing against Perth Glory on the Saturday in their final game of the season.

But in true Wanderers scheduling style, they must first play against Kashima Antlers in the Asian Champions League on Tuesday evening.



Western Sydney Wanderers: Ante COVIC, YUSUKE Tanaka, Jonothan ASPRO, Matthew SPIRANOVIC (C), Antony GOLEC, YOJIRO Takahagi, (77” Jason TRIFIRO), Mateo POLJAK, Romeo CASTELEN (66” Kerem BULUT), Steve KUZMANOVSKI (70” Nikita RUKAVYTSYA) and Tomi JURIC


Adelaide United: Eugene GALEKOVIC, Tarek ELRICH, Nigel BOOGARD, Osama MALIK, Craig GOODWIN, ISAIAS, Cameron WATSON (Dylan McGOWAN 63”), James JEGGO, Pablo SANCHEZ (84” Michael MARRONE), Bruce DJITE (78” Miguel PALANCA) and Sergio CIRIO