Adelaide United 3-2 Central Coast Mariners

It’s always sad when a football match’s main talking point is a contentious refereeing decision. Not just because the discussion of the game usually devolves into an argument of whether the decision was right or wrong, but because it takes the focus away from the actual football on display.

It’s doubly sad when the talking point is VAR controversy because it takes the focus even further away. We’re now talking about whether the decision was upheld/overturned correctly on top of the actual decision itself.

But we’ve had enough conversation about that, and we saw both Strebre Delovski (Australian Professional Leagues’ director of referees) and Greg O'Rourke (Australian Professional Leagues commissioner) both making statements saying that errors were made.

Let’s not forget that there was a game of football being played - an interesting one at that!

Adelaide Early

To replace the attacking directness and dynamism of Riley McGree, Carl Veart’s attacking plans involved his midfielders joining the attack. In previous games, the setup seemed to be a 4-3-3 with one holding midfielder, but this game saw the midfield triangle flipped, with Stefan Mauk deployed in front of the two deeper midfielders, Louis D’Arrigo and Joe Caletti.

In buildup, Adelaide frequently had three players in their back line, with either Noah Smith or D’Arrigo joining the centre-backs. This gave Adelaide a numerical advantage against the Mariners’ front two, and gave D’Arrigo and the centre-backs time to measure long passes out defence. Mariners’ wide midfielders Jaden Casella and Daniel De Silva couldn’t go forward to help without leaving a 2v1 behind them with their full-back overloaded by the opposition fullback and winger.

In midfield, Adelaide were again able to work an overload. When the Mariners would press, Adelaide pushed the full-backs wide, and with D’Arrigo and Caletti drawing Michał Janota and Oliver Bozanic forward, Mauk was allowed time in behind the midfielders, due to the 3v2 in midfield. George Timotheu in particular was good with his distribution, and could thread the ball through midfield. Upon receiving the ball, Mauk would turn and look to release the wingers in behind.

Mauk also drifted to the right-hand-side, with Halloran dropping to help further dominate the midfield. While Jack Clisby would follow him out of defence, Mauk’s positioning threatened runs in behind, while De Silva had to track Javi López, who threatened to overlap.

The first period saw them have a lot of promising possession in the Mariners’ half, but they couldn’t seem to connect clinically in the box.

CCM Response

The Mariners spent much of the early period defending, and their early possession was either quick counterattacks, or direct play towards Matt Simon and Marco Ureña up front.

The Mariners’ buildup play also saw them have three in the back, with Bozanic dropping from midfield in between the two centre-backs. From here, he had a playmaking role, spraying the ball out to the full-backs (1), who would push up into midfield. Janota occupied space in midfield to act as a possession retention option, while the attacking midfielders De Silva and Casella would tuck in slightly, and from this position they prepared to run in behind to latch onto flick-ons from direct balls (2) or contributed to buildup (3). 

This was how the opener was scored. Bozanic dropped between the centre-backs, finding Clisby with a long ball out wide. Clisby played it first-time towards De Silva running in behind, and Jordan Elsey’s underhit pass allowed De Silva to nip in to score. 

The passage of play that led to the goal was actually the first time in the game that the Mariners managed to hold the ball for more than 20 seconds that wasn’t part of a counterattack.

Direct Play

The Mariners main attack was from direct play. While Ureña acted more as a link player, Simon’s physicality and aggression made him an excellent target man, excellent for long clearing balls or crosses into the area. Clisby was dangerous with his delivery as usual, and when he received the ball his first thought was often to see if an early cross was available to the two strikers making runs into the box.

Adelaide also attacked with Tomi Juric as a target man. At times this season he’s looked isolated on his own up front, but it seems that he’s building chemistry with the other members of Adelaide’s attack. His centre-forward play in this game was excellent, managing to hold onto possession well when the ball was played into his feet or to his chest. Mauk’s higher deployment and Ben Halloran roaming from his position meant that they were in position to combine with Juric or challenge for second balls from flick-ons.

This was how the situation for the first Adelaide penalty was created - a long throw-in from Javi López to Juric and a neat flick from Juric to the onrushing Mauk.

Second half substitutions

The second half started frantically, with both sides pressing hard and neither team able to settle or control the game.

Stajcic replaced Janota with Josh Nisbet and Ureña with Alou Kuol. The substitutes had mixed results - Kuol added pace and energy up front and ran in behind, scoring from a quick throw-in, while Nisbet controversially conceded the second penalty to Mauk (but otherwise was solid). 

The penalty came from another Javi López throw-in, with Mauk buzzing around the right half-space area yet again. It was interesting because Bozanic had initially been on that left of the midfield partnership, but handed over responsibility of Mauk to Nisbet just prior to the incident. Perhaps they saw Nisbet’s fresh energy was more suited to dealing with Mauk’s movement. 

Adelaide’s substitutions saw Yaya Dukuly replaced by Pacifique Niyongabire in a straight swap, and Mauk withdrawn for Mohamed Toure with Toure going to the right flank and Halloran dropping into Mauk’s midfield spot.

The third penalty came from a familiar situation - yet another Javi López throw-in to Juric, whose shot-cross wasn’t dealt with, ending up with the handball decision against Kye Rowles.

By this time, Daniel Bouman had joined the fray, and the Mariners were all-out attacking. Balls were played into Simon and were so unlucky to not come off, with Kuol and Bouman close to being on the receiving end of lay-offs. The best chance came to Bozanic, who got on the end of yet another fantastic Clisby cross, only for James Delianov to fortuitously save it with his face.

In Summary

With injuries to a few key players, Adelaide have had an inconsistent season so far, but Veart might have found a good balance in midfield. At times they’ve been dependent on either Juric to create or the X-factor of their young complement of attackers (the Toure brothers, Niyongabire and Yengi), but in this game Juric seemed to be slightly less isolated compared to previous games. A recent trend has seen them fail to create more than 1.0xG in 5 out of their last 7 games, in this game they managed to create 4.0 xG (removing penalties we get 1.72xG - a definite improvement).

Although the Mariners were unfortunately over-penalised, it shouldn’t take away from the fact that this was one of their less effective performances this season, relying on a defensive error and quick thinking from a throw-in to score. It’s not too bad once you take into consideration the high bar they’ve set, but with highly effective finishing from their strikers in previous games, they’ll still feel aggrieved by this performance and result, and rightly so.

VAR sadly remains a huge talking point for this game - let’s hope that it’s a while before more controversy pops up again this season.