Postecoglou left shaking his head as Celtic fail to impress in Sydney
SYDNEY FC
Mak 26, Burgess 60
2 CELTIC 1 Furuhashi 23
There was a moment about half an hour into Celtic’s first Sydney Super Cup encounter when the television camera panned to a close-up of Ange Postecoglou.
Theframecamestraightafter Sydney FC had fashioned yet another opportunity against an all-at-sea Celtic backline. It saiditallthatpostecogloucould then be seen shaking his head furiously and with a look of disgustnormallyreservedforfinding something unpleasant on your shoe.
Even if the scoreline was 1-1 at that point, a Kyogo Furuhashi 23rd-minute opener quickly cancelled out by Robert Mak, it betrayed that the Greek-australian’s homecoming wasn’t exactly going to plan.
The 57-year-old, a title winner with South Melbourne and Brisbane Roar and an Asian Cup winner at the helm of the national side, had wanted to show Celtic’s best face on his return to his adopted country. The manager had wanted his mentoproduceaperformance of the sort that has allowed the Scottish champions to blitz domestic opponents in establishing a nine-point lead in the cinch Premiership.
Instead,acrossafirstperiodin which Sydney twice hit the bar as well before their equaliser, Celtic served up a display reminiscent of the ghastly showing that condemned them to their oneleaguelossofthecampaign awaytostmirreninseptember.
It was no mere co-incidence that Celtic’s manager sought to
pull his team together following the half-time interval by throwing Jota, Matt O’riley, Reohatate,seadhaksabanovic and Greg Taylor into the action - and in the process hauling off Liel Abada, Oliver Abildgaard, Yosukeideguchiandalexandro Bernabei.fromthatpointceltic were in complete control and createdaraftofopportunities… exceptforwhentheirdefensive frailties reared up again on the hour mark as Max Burgess was
able to cut inside from the left and unleash an unstoppable shot that fizzed into the top corner.
The diminution in quality when a handful of key performers are removed from the Celtic side will surely be the main takeaway from a surprise loss to a currently mid-table A-league side. As Ideguchi - in his first sighting in a senior settingsincemay-andabildgaard proved completely unable to
impose themselves, Bernabei gave a master class in how not toofferprotectionasaforwardthinking full-back. Everything came down his side in the first half,andheneverseemedinthe vicinity to do anything about it.
The Argentine did have one positive contribution. His hitand-hope, edge-of-the-box shot was the genesis of an illdeserved opener, Kyogo cleverly stepping in front of it as it appearedheadingwidetochest
it beyond the helpless Tom Heward-belle.
This lead lasted a mere three minutes, with Mak exploiting Celtic’s high line to fasten on to a through ball and outpace Stephen Welsh, before cutting across goal and sidefooting a crisp effort beyond Benjamin Siegrist. Celtic improved in the second period but the Burgess goal meant they started the tournamentwithadefeat.everton are up next on Sunday.