City blasts past limp Brisbane

MELBOURNE City has made the A-League’s final four by defeating Brisbane 2-0 in their elimination final through second-half strikes to Stefan Mauk and Nick Fitzgerald.

Warren Joyce’s side delivered on its season of promise last night at AAMI Park, bossing the Roar from start to finish.

City might have won by a bigger margin but it’ll gratefully take its prize; a semi-final away to Newcastle on Friday.

Brisbane barely fired a shot against City, ending its season with a whimper.

From the opening minutes, the Roar looked like it had spent all its meal tickets reaching the finals.

In contrast, City was welldrilled, full of run and enterprise. Bruno Fornaroli and Daniel Arzani impressed but this was a complete team performance.

City had 10 scoring shots to Brisbane’s one in the first half but Dario Vidosic, Arzani and Osama Malik failed to put decent first-half chances on target.

When Luke Brattan went down clutching his thigh as halftime approached, Brisbane boss John Aloisi might have wondered whether his side had weathered the storm. Instead, the ex-Roar title winner continued, and City kept up the pressure.

After knocking at the door for an hour, Fornaroli finally opened it. The Uruguayan pressured Jack Hingert into slipping in the corner, taking possession and setting up Mauk for the opener.

Brisbane awoke from their counter-attacking strategy and pushed forward but Massimo Maccarone couldn’t put a pair of back-post efforts on target. But then Dario Vidosic broke free for City and set up Fitzgerald to score in injury time.