Melbourne Victory ended Rockdale City Suns’ cup dream, eliminating them by coming out on top 3:2.
Earlier today, Rockdale City Suns played their Round of 16 game against Melbourne Victory in the Australian FFA Cup. The team of the Macedonian community in Australia, founded back in 1969 as Rockdale Ilinden, put up a brave fight as the first goal would come on the stroke of halftime. It was Jesse Makarounas who scored in the 45th minute after an assist by Daniel Georgievski.
Melbourne Victory doubled its lead five minutes into the 2nd half through Besart Berisha. Things did not look good at that point, but Rockdale pulled one goal back three minutes later. They converted a penalty kick after Thomas Deng used his hand inside the area. Marko Jesic successfully converted the spot kick. The hopes for a miracle ended in the 65th minute when Makarounas added his second goal to make it 3:1.
Rockdale did grab a second goal in the 86th minute following a corner kick. An own goal by Leigh Borxham made it 3:2, leading to a nervy finish, but Melbourne Victory hung on to reach the quarter-finals of the competition.
Daniel Georgievski ended up playing the whole match for Melbourne Victory. He was fielded at right-back and compiled one assist.
The match will also be remembered as it was the first in which a female referee officiated an A-League team. It was the 25-year-old Katie Patterson who did a great job and will go down in history.
Jubilee Oval stadium in Sydney, Australia
Rockdale City Suns – Melbourne Victory 2:3 (0:1)
Goals: 53′ Marko Jesic, 86′ (o.g.) Leigh Broxham – 45′, 65′ Jesse Makarounas, 50′ Besart Berisha
Rockdale City Suns: Ivan Necevski, Patrick Savor, Nicholas Petrillo, Steven Hesketh, Takuya Murayama (66’ Alec Urosevski); Hristijan Tanoski (75’ Matsuhiro Iwamoto), Idriss El Hafiane, Paul Reid (84’ David Dascal), Toufic Alameddine; Marko Jesic, Dylan Macallister.
Melbourne Victory: Danny Vukovic; Dylan Murnane, Matthieu Delpierre, Thomas Deng (75’ Rashid Mahazi), Daniel Georgievski, Leigh Broxham, Jesse Makarounas, Carl Valeri; Fahid Ben Khalfallah (86’ George Howard), Besart Berisha, Archie Thompson (85’ Joey Katebian).
Yellow cards: Reid (R), Makarounas, Valeri (M)
Red cards: /
Referee Katie Patterson
