Heart claim derby honours in NYL
Melbourne Heart has levelled the 2013/2014 Foxtel National Youth League Melbourne derby ledger with a comfortable 3-1 win over a depleted Melbourne Victory at Epping Stadium on Sunday.
Melbourne Heart has levelled the 2013/2014 Foxtel National Youth League Melbourne derby ledger with a comfortable 3-1 win over a depleted Melbourne Victory at Epping Stadium on Sunday.
The Heart dominated the clash from start to finish and were rewarded for their efforts with a deserved 3-1 win and goals for Gol-Gol Mebrahtu, Jonathan Germano and Marcus Schroen before a late consolation goal from Victory’s Anthony Proia.
The clash also marked the long-awaited return of Melbourne Heart marquee player Orlando Engelaar who played out a solid half-hour first-half cameo, primarily distributing balls over distance from deep and covering the back four.
From the outset, Heart had winners all over the pitch with Ersin Kaya, Paulo Retre and Jeremy Walker generating much attacking threat down the right flank looking dangerous and creating opportunities with winger and full back interchanging freely.
The Victory struggled to cope with Heart’s aggressive pressing and were limited to only a few chances with Francesco Stella and Luka Prelevic toiling hard to try and make something happen.
Benjamin Garuccio won a free-kick on the edge of the box in the 17th minute which Mebrahtu scored via a wicked deflection off the wall that wrong-footed Lawrence Thomas in the Victory goal to give Heart the lead.
Mebrahtu had three golden opportunities in the first half to further add to his tally being released through the centre by the Heart midfield to be denied on each occasion by the onrushing Victory keeper who made himself big one-on-one.
Victory’s only good opportunity of the first half came through Stella releasing Christopher Cristaldo through the middle one-on-one but Marko Stevanja was quick to come off his line and block the forward’s shot.
Against the complexion of the match, Victory almost found themselves level early in the second half with Stella releasing Prelevic in the box whose shot across the face of goal rebounded off the post and back into play in the 51st minute.
Heart substitute Marcus Schroen caused many problems for Victory after coming on, most notably crossing for Jonathan Germano who had found himself in space in the box to head over Thomas into the far corner in the 55th minute to double Heart’s advantage and gain some deserved breathing space.
Heart went further ahead in the 67th minute seizing on some poor marking from a corner as Ross Archibald was able to head the ball back across the face of goal unchallenged to Schroen who hooked the ball in over his head past the outstretched palms of Thomas to score a goal his game had deserved after a number of attempts on goal.
Victory did score a late consolation goal with the last play of the day as Anthony Proia played a neat one-two with Prelevic resulting in a simple tap-in from 6 yards in the third minute of second-half added time to give a level of respectability to the score line which perhaps did not reflect Heart’s polished domination of the encounter.
Melbourne Heart 3 (Mebrahtu 17m, Germano 55m, Schroen 67m) Melbourne Victory 1 (Proia 90+3m)