Milos Ninkovic recovered from a horrendous miss to provide the final pass for the goal that won an incendiary Sydney derby 1-0 for his new club, the Western Sydney Wanderers, in one of the best A-League nights the city has seen in years.
It all revolved around Ninkovic, the two-time Johnny Warren Medal winner and former Sydney FC icon who made the most controversial transfer in the league’s short history in the off-season, moving west to the Wanderers after falling out with Steve Corica and the Sky Blues’ hierarchy during negotiations for a new contract.
For weeks, the two sides have lobbed allegations of dishonesty at one another, with Ninkovic going as far as branding Corica an outright “liar” on Thursday in an interview with the Herald – but it was all due to come to a head on Saturday, on the pitch, in the first derby at the new Allianz Stadium in front of 34,232 fans.
The atmosphere was incredible, with thousands of active supporters packing in at either end to sing their team to victory – and after a tepid first half, barely worth recounting, the game exploded into life in the second.
It would be understating things to say Ninkovic was booed with every touch, although he was: Sydney FC fans loved it whenever he was stripped of the ball, crunched in a tackle or appealed for a foul that wasn’t given, cheering for his misfortune with the same fervour they once did when he pulled the strings for them.
Milos Ninkovic set up Kusini Yengi for what proved to be the match-winning goal on Saturday night.Credit:Getty
So they roared with approval in the 63rd minute, when the former Serbian international was slipped a perfect through ball by Sulejman Krpic which sent him one-on-one with Qatar-bound Socceroos goalkeeper Andrew Redmayne – the best chance of the game to that point.
It was a golden opportunity for Ninkovic to break the deadlock, but he dwelled on the ball for what seemed like an eternity before firing it straight into Redmayne’s chest. The schadenfreude was delicious for Sydney supporters, and they savoured every moment of it.
But a player of Ninkovic’s class rarely makes the same sort of mistake twice within a match, and seven minutes later, he held his nerve to set up Kusini Yengi for the opening goal.
Yengi threw off two challenges from Sydney defenders before rocketing the ball into the net and sparking a mini-pitch invasion, as around 50 fans jumped out of the Red and Black Bloc to celebrate with Wanderers players on the field, while at least one flare was thrown on with them.
‘NEW NEST, SAME RATS’ was the RBB’s evaluation of the new stadium, scrawled across banners displayed in the second half – and it took a long time for many of them to even set foot within it after reports on social media of a dangerous bottleneck at the members’ entrance to the adjacent SCG, where police would only let Wanderers fans in one-by-one.
Pre-match, The Cove made their feelings known to Ninkovic with a tifo which read ‘LEGENDS ARE CHERISHED. TRAITORS’ LEGACIES WILL PERISH’, along with depictions of club greats Corica, Rhyan Grant and Alex Brosque as knights in shining armour. One Sydney FC fan even set ablaze one of Ninkovic’s old No.10 jerseys during the traditional march to the stadium, while another sign called him a ‘JUDA$’.
But it was the 37-year-old veteran who had the last laugh, and the RBB chanted his name in added time when he was subbed off by coach Marko Rudan, drowning out most of the jeers.
Western Sydney had to hold out some late attacking raids from the hosts to clinch the three points, with the result marking a solid recovery from their horrendous display at home to the Central Coast Mariners last weekend – but overall, they were comfortably the better team.
For the Sky Blues, this was their second defeat in a row and third of the season, with their disjointed play and struggle to generate scoring chances leaving Corica with much to ponder as the A-League now enters a period of recess during the FIFA World Cup’s group stages.
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