With the 1st round of Australian A-League just around the corner, we will be looking at the opening match of the A-League between Adelaide United and Sydney FC.
Adelaide United, the hosts are coming into this match after winning 4 consecutive matches in FFA Cup. With the most recent win against Bentleigh Greens (0:2), Adelaide got themselves a ticket to the final match, where they will meet no other than Sydney FC. Looking at the match against Bentleigh, we saw Ben Halloran getting his debut goal in 21′. Just 5 minutes after halftime, we saw another goal from Elsey, who sealed the deal for the opposition, who couldn’t find an answer after being 2 goals down in 49′. Adelaide managed to win the match 0:2, despite having only 49% of the possession, however, they had 21 goal attempts, which is almost twice as much compared to Bentleigh (11 attempts).
The visiting team, Sydney FC are coming into this match after winning the FFA Cup semi-finals against WS Wanderers. The first half of that match did not look too promising for Sydney. With only 2 goal attempts and somewhat poor overall performance, It looked they were going to give the win away to Western Sydney. That changed in the 2nd half when we were looking at a completely different Sydney FC. The first goal of the match was scored in 49′ by Buhagiar, thus giving Sydney FC the lead. 15 minutes later, de Jong extended the lead to 0:2 for Sydney FC. At this point, Sydney FC almost had the win in their hands, but they sealed the deal with the 3rd goal which was scored in 75 by Le Fondre (penalty). Sydney deserved the win with an impressive performance in the 2nd half, thus advancing into the FFA Cup Finals.
Both teams managed to find their way to FFA Cup finals, where they will meet on 30th of October. The upcoming match is like a final before the final. It will be a great way for both of the teams to get a feel of the opponent before FFA Cup finals. As for how this match will go, I expect a close match. Looking at how H2H matches between Adelaide and Sydney FC went, we can see a draw or a win by only 1 goal is more common than not when these two teams meet. That is mostly due to the fact both teams have excellent defenses, which don’t let too many goals being conceived. Despite the fact I expect a low scoring match, Sydney FC will be my favorite. We might not see a similar final result to the last match these two teams played (3:0), but we will surely see the same winner, Sydney FC. Back up Sydney FC, to get their first win of the season and show off their strength before the FFA Cup finals.
Prediction: Sydney FC +0.00 Asian Handicap
Odds: 1.74 SBOBET (1.76 on Dafabet when sent to premium members)
