Gloryous

Total Football; superb 15 pass goal involving every Perth outfield player, surely goal of the season

EARLIER today I wrote about what at the time must surely have been a candidate for goal of the season, a magnificent spin, carry, fake and guide from Shane Smeltz in Wellington last night. It was a beautiful piece of individual brilliance.

Well, move over Smeltz, enter Nikita Rukavytsya, who tonight, just over 24 hours later, was on the end of a superb team move involving 15 passes and every single Perth Glory outfield player.

Yes, believe it or not, the only player not to get a touch in the move was the Glory gloveman, Tando Velaphi.

Have you ever seen or heard about anything like that?

It’s true.

It started on the hour mark with a quickly taken free-kick in the right fullback spot, the result of Adrian Caceres being caught off-side.

Instead of placing it and wait for his team-mates to shape up up the field, in readiness for a launched long ball, as we too often see in this league, Downey played on with a quickly taken free-kick, rolling it up the line for Pellegrino. He carried it on and darted infield where he squared it for Shroj. Soon it was out on the left where Djulbic, with nowhere to go, decided to put his foot on it and go backwards.

There the trio of Topor-Stanley, Coyne and Harnwell played a neat series of triangle wall-passes at the back, until the skipper, able to turn, played a one-two with Topor-Stanely and burst through the midfield beyond Jedinak.

Here is where Perth got their only touch of luck. Coyne’s first touch from the return Topor-Stanley ball was heavy, but with Shroj distracting Osman, the ball had enough on it to escape the midfielder, and make its way to Trinidad.

The ball was now in the final third.

Ducking infield, the little Argentine, nimble on the ball, with his head up, played it into Rukavystya and kept going. This is when the hitherto patient build-up became a work of art, with the two combining for a dazzling triangle of passes.

Suddenly Rukavystya was on the ball again, facing the goal, but when he looked up, there were still a few white shirts in front of him. Only one Glory player hadn’t been involved in the move.

Rukavystya spotted the huge frame of Eugene Dadi, rolled a short five metre ball into his feet and sprinting into the space, inside the box. There he received a wonderfully weighted first touch from the Frenchmen, straight into his path.

There was still some work to do, but instinctively the Ukrainian born Aussie, scoring goals for fun, hit it first time, with his favoured left peg, and despite the hand from Vukovic, it crept in, thankfully and Glory-ously.

It rarely gets better than that, a move lasting just under a minute, involving all 10 outfield players, the ball moved all over the pitch.

“It’s football at its very, very best,” said Foxsports commentator Andy Harper, and he was spot on.

The only tragedy for David Mitchell was the fact Perth couldn’t kill the game, despite some dazzling football shortly after that goal, for it was surely worthy of winning any game.

Thankyou Perth Glory.