1-0 Win In Chilly Canberra Trial

yay. we won. we are the best

Can we steal the 'one - nil to the Arsenal' chant now as after last season and the start of this it is seeming appropriate. 

No to arsenal chants.

Was it a decent strike ? Any player catch anyones eye?

Did we dominate?

Was it a decent strike ? Any player catch anyones eye?

Sotirio's strike was excellent, and he was quite good. Poljak was very good when given the chance in the 2nd half, and there was some solid work from Fofanah in the midfield. Barker-Daish was busy and should've done more with some of his movement in the Canberra box, and Yianni Perkatis was another who looked good IMHO.

All up it was (for me anyway) a pretty scratchy performance, no doubt attributable to the changes and personnel on board. CFC were able to retain their shape better than the Rams did and to be honest could have come away with a draw. With no Tomi, Bridge, Santa and Vitor to bomb on in the oppo box, and Labi having a very quiet match we looked a little toothless. I think the words 'shoot' and '*****' may have been used.

BTW nice to meet PeteWestie and his kids, as well as Kitto. Plus some of the usual hooligans....

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/sport/soccer/aleague-side-western-sydney-wanderers-win-10-against-canberra-fc-in-preseason-friendly-20140730-zyka9.html

Date July 30, 2014 - 10:48PM

•  

Lee Gaskin Sports reporter at The Canberra Times

Click for more photos

Flares let off as Western Sydney Wanderers beat Canberra FC at Deakin Stadium

• View all 30 photos

Western Sydney Wanderers coach Tony Popovic received the type of challenge he wanted for his A-League side in Wednesday night's pre-season friendly against a gallant Canberra FC.

The 1-0 scoreline to the Wanderers is irrelevant at this early stage of their preparation, but it gave Popovic the chance to expose several promising youngsters while being without seven members of his first-team squad.

A 22nd minute strike from 18-year-old Young Socceroos representative Jaushua Sotirio was enough for the Wanderers to scrape past the Canberra National Premier League club in front of an impressive crowd of 1600 at Deakin Stadium.

The only disturbance off the field was the lighting of a handful of flares in the Wanderers' supporters section with 10 minutes to go in the game.

Police were on the scene but no arrests were made.

"It's a good hit out for us,'' Popovic said.

''We're still very early in our preparation and the boys are working extremely hard at training. A lot of heavy legs but that's all part of it. We blooded a lot of youngsters tonight and left a lot of players at home for a rest.

"Overall, it was a good exercise, there were no injuries from the game, so we go home happy.''

Brazilian import Vitor Saba remained in Sydney with the flu, while captain, and Canberra product, Nikolai Topor-Stanley played the opening 45 minutes before being substituted in his second game back from a knee injury sustained in last season's grand final loss to the Brisbane Roar.

The Wanderers are building towards their two-legged Champions League tie with Chinese powerhouse Guangzhou Evergrande on August 20 and 27.

"It will be a tough task for us to play them in pre-season but the boys are doing well and we've got another three weeks to go,'' Popovic said.

"We'll be a lot better by then.''

Canberra FC more than held its own and had a couple of fantastic chances to equalise in the second half.

Striker Phillipe Bernabo-Madrid enjoyed the opportunity to make the step up against A-League opposition, especially when he was marked by Topor-Stanley.

"He's a strong boy – I told the boys if I beat him for a header they've got to buy me dinner tonight because he's the strongest person,'' Bernabo-Madrid laughed.

"It's just a big test.

"It's a confidence boost for sure because I thought we did really well.''

Along with their regular squad, the Wanderers gave game time to Capital Football NTC players Tom Milicevic and Ross Costanzo.

Sotirio made the most of a half chance inside the box, showing superb skills to flick the ball over a Canberra FC defender and put his finish into the bottom left corner of the net.

The Wanderers will continue their pre-season campaign next Tuesday against Apia Leichhardt at Leichhardt Oval.

WESTERN SYDNEY WANDERERS 1 (Jaushua Sotirio 22') bt CANBERRA FC 0 at Deakin Stadium on Wednesday night.

Haha that link has about 5 shots of the players on the field and the rest flares/rbb/police.

Wasn't as cold as I thought it would be. That's a good thing.

Bernabo-Madrid challenged Mullen and Kwabs a fair bit in the first half...might be a pick up for an A-League club down the road...

^ Correction, Kitto...6 shots of players, 3 shots of Wanderers supporters...and the rest of flares, cops, fire extinguishers.  

Just got back, I had a great night giving it to security guards & when I needed a break both myself and a mate were standing in front of them to block their view.

I'm torn over flares though, there's no way we will ever get them allowed and people can get hurt too easily in this touchy feely world but they are awesome,you could definitely hear everyone step it up lol

Oh and Canberra times has 30 photos but the first 24 are flares...

F$&k you Melissa Adams, you were lucky to leave with your camera not wedged up your ass.

Good to see Boris around, and one of the players come up to see him.

That little p-p-popovic chant at the end of the game would be cool to the tune of Elvis Costello's song Pump It Up. That little descending three notes at the start and in the chorus.

I get the impression Phillipe Bernabo-Madrid comes from a football family.

I get the impression Phillipe Bernabo-Madrid comes from a football family.

I doubt he is a Farcelona supporter.

I do feel for poor Jaushua though. Fancy having to correct the spelling of that name through out your whole life.

Good effort to all those who travelled. Poor effort for the flares. Not really necessary are they?

Didn't get time to head down so followed the comments on Twitter... this, by far, was the greatest tweeted picture of the whole night:

Popa is holding his cards very close to the chests. A few more weeks to go til we meet Evergrande, and we are yet to see a full strength squad. So are Evergrande have been kept in the dark about the strengths and weaknesses of the WSW. And so have we.

Didn't get time to head down so followed the comments on Twitter... this, by far, was the greatest tweeted picture of the whole night:

 

Is that pig in a urinal..?

 

Didn't get time to head down so followed the comments on Twitter... this, by far, was the greatest tweeted picture of the whole night:

 

Is that pig in a urinal..?

 

"And this little piggy cried wee wee wee all the way home"

 

Didn't get time to head down so followed the comments on Twitter... this, by far, was the greatest tweeted picture of the whole night:

 

Is that pig in a urinal..?

 

Todd Carney could marinate it..

Interesting that Sotirio scored last night. After training on Tuesday Popa kept him back to work on cutting inside and slotting his shot in at the far post. Good on him

Class.

Class.

Would have been better if it was facing the pitch tho.

#heaven

Canberra "Hillbilly" Times = messs!

Interesting that Sotirio scored last night. After training on Tuesday Popa kept him back to work on cutting inside and slotting his shot in at the far post. Good on him

Bridge mk 2.

 

Interesting that Sotirio scored last night. After training on Tuesday Popa kept him back to work on cutting inside and slotting his shot in at the far post. Good on him

Bridge mk 2.

FYI

STARTING XI:

Bouzanis (GK), Pasalic (T), Mullen, Topor-Stanley ©, Alessi, Trifiro, Perkatis, Barker-Daish (T), Sotirio, Appiah, Haliti

BENCH:

Ante Covic (GK), Brendan Hamill, Shannon Cole, Martin Lo, Mateo Poljak, Alusine Fofanah

TRIALLISTS:
Steve Kuzmanovski, Michael Trajkovski, Tom Milicevic, Ross Costanzo

A lot of (former) youth players there

Shite, missed all the fun.