Summary: South Melbourne FC and Green Gully SC will be sharing points this week, after their clash at John Cain Memorial Park ended in a 1-1 draw. Despite both teams creating golden opportunities to gain the lead, none were capitalised on.
It only takes one week for the depressive feelings of a loss to fully leave me, and fortunately it had been over a week since South last played. When analysing each player, each link-up, I can’t help but be feel confident coming into a game such as this one. It’s easy to see, during pre-match analysis, that we possess many strengths! Though when a match starts, it becomes apparent that these strengths are completely negated by our weaknesses. But as a strutted into our second home game of the year, confused at the questionable changes made to Lakeside stadium since I was last there, I couldn’t relinquish this sense of confidence I possessed. Luckily for me, South are always there to humble me.
We started the match with the same sporadic aggression we have for the last few weeks, never looking realistically threatening, but dominating possession in an encouraging way. We also brought our defensive strategies from the last few weeks, which leaves a lot to be desired. Once again, our opposition were able to capitalise on counterattacks in a way we have yet to master, though Gully never truly outplayed us. It wasn’t one particular player of theirs that gave us much trouble (like Zwed at Kingston or Zinni at Avondale), more so an advanced strategy mixed with a general lack of communication by South. This communication hit an all time low when play had to be stopped after Perry Lambropoulos collided with Kostas Stratomitros, both trying to win a ball only contested by the other.
In saying that, there were a few positives unique to this game. Even though our attacking strategy remained unchanged, we felt more fluid on the ball. Whether that was due to a decrease in long balls, or players being more active in creating options, everything felt less congested. Gerrie Sylaidos did an excellent job pushing up the ball through the centre and then distributing it to the wings, and multiple link-ups with Nick Krousoratis led to promising bouts of intelligent attacking. The only real issue we had when setting up play was our back-passing, which has almost led to conceding multiple times. I’m not sure if historically South is known for this strategy, but I don’t remember seeing it this heavily used in the last 5+ seasons, and Roganovic’s accuracy is just appalling. Our attack is primarily undertaken on the wing, but if 65/70% of your kicks are going wide and out, we’d have a better chance of maintaining possession just booting it through the centre.
I’m not sure if this is just a South Melbourne problem, but every time we miss golden opportunities, and are not already in the lead, its feel like the score is being undermined. It may be 0-0 on the scoresheet, but for me we are actually losing. And usually in the first 20 minutes or so, if our aggression remains under-utilised, the scoresheet and my beliefs usually meet. This week it was exactly on the 20th minute, where poor man-marking led to Matt Fletcher slotting in a weak goal to concede. Credit to the players though, as they fought through the frustration, and in the 26th minute, a Krousoratis shot brought Gerrard Tyson off his line, his deflection brought the ball to Sylaidos, who was able to control and volley the ball into the back of the net. After conceding, and even after equalising, we began to tense up in our positions, our fluidity receded, and did not emerge until the end of the second half.
No one was feeling Billy Konstantinidis’ five week suspension more than Giuseppe Marafioti, who struggled to uphold the role of centre forward. On multiple occasions he would wander out of the penalty box to make a run on the line, only to find there was no one to whip it in to. Our lack of bigger players makes Marafioti our best option in the box, so either we phase out those traditional crosses from our strategy, or we get him to play more centrally and much higher up. At half time, I was deflated but hopeful, a common feeling at this point in a South match. Not only was this an important match to get results, but it was the only match this season we looked more likely to win.
The second half saw us on the back foot, having to fend off much more Green Gully aggression than previously seen. There was still enough time for us to bring the ball up the field and miss, and there was still enough time for us produce more infuriating back passes. As much as I hate to come across as more negative than constructive, it was another below average half played out. As opposed to our match against Kingston, where our issue was an inability to score a few yards out of the box, this week felt like poor decision-making prevented us from finding those opportunities in the first place. Players looked unsure whether to switch to the wings, play it centrally or push forward themselves, meaning many players were dispossessed before even seeing the goal. And when we did… well, nothing happened. Irrelevant of what position he was playing in, Marafioti missed far too many shots to be considered a reliable forward, and while our other options may not possess the same build, would at least provide increased accuracy. I doubt it was out of our own timidity, and more so opposition aggression, but when our defending is less assuring than our attacking, having to do it for more of the half than not led to an anxious 45 minutes.
Towards the end of the half we begun showing a bit more fight (it could have been desperation), but there was no insight leading our attacks. When Marafioti was subbed off for Leigh Minopoulos, we found ourselves with another midfield-striker hybrid, one which had functioned poorly previously. Like last week, when Bereveskos was subbed on, he was visibly attempting to rally his troops, but could not turn this passion into anything useful.
There was public outrage when Gerrie Sylaidos was subbed off in the 86th minute for Zac Bates, and despite having exerted a lot of energy, still looked like he could have run out the remaining 10 minutes. Unfortunately, these incredibly ineffective substitutions will probably remain throughout the next few weeks; for our only offensive issue is having an out of position striker every week, and that’s something no amount of attacking midfielders will be able to compensate. As if to meet the disdain of the supporters’, after 5 minutes the youngster injured himself so severely he was unable to return to the pitch, and for the second consecutive week, South ran out the game with 10 men.
My final thoughts after Sunday’s game are this: If we aren’t good enough to beat top tier teams like Bentleigh and Avondale, but also can’t beat lower tier teams like Kingston and Green Gully, and struggle to score goals against the last team on the ladder, are we a team that deserves to be in this league, a league we so often denounce?
Notable players: Gerrie Sylaidos, Nick Krousoratis
South Melbourne FC: 1
Green Gully SC: 1
Edit: The instability of coaching at South has yet again led to another change... More to be said about it next week.