By Greg Blake
It took a pair of second-half penalties – both converted by Bul Juach – to get Heidelberg United over the line 2-0, on the road against Dandenong City last Friday night. Defeated just once this season coming into the game, Dandenong City were competent enough, just not good enough against an Alexander team finding its 2025 groove.
If you enjoy film noir at the Nova, Dandenong City are just as mysterious, hard-to-read and often as inconclusive as a black-and-white Bulgarian award-winner. Friday night told us nothing about the team Nick Tolios took to the promised land of finals last season.
As for Alexander, they are becoming more like a new Avengers blockbuster at Imax. The plot line might be a little sketchy, but you just know something is going to happen.
The Warriors are growing in confidence and playing an increasingly edgy, aggressive style that looms and prowls and growls and threatens from game-on until the final whistle. And then there’s the x-factors. Sabit Ngor, Max Bisetto, Asahi Yokokamwa, Mo Aidara and Juach are becoming quite the unpredictable assault team.
Deliciously unpredictable, in as much as not even they know which of them will produce something unexpected, let alone when or how. You just feel that something’s going to happen. And it generally does.
John Anastasiadis’ team is becoming bigger and bolder as the weeks tick by and on Friday night they were firing shots over the Dandenong City bow very early on. Ngor lobbed one over the bar and sliced another wide and into the trees at the eastern end.
Nothing reeked of welcome back, Jamal ‘Whispering Death’ Ali, more than his early combination with Bisetto to set up another chance. If he wasn’t using his angular frame to unbalance and beat an potential attacking threat, he was 90 metres downfield trading dance steps with a Dandenong defender on the goal line. Tiring of the dance, Ali slipped around his bemused opponent before delivering a sizzler across the goal face.
If you don’t enjoy Jamal Ali you don’t enjoy l life. Often when and where it’s least expected, Ali seems to simply arrive at the precise time and space where the ball is and an opponent isn’t and then proceeds to create time for himself in a manner contrary to the basic principles of physics.
Ngor, Juach and Bisetto – at one point ‘Magic Max’, fouled as he sprinted at full pace, looked like a drunk crossing a busy road as his momentum induced a lengthy, slow-motion tumble to the ground – led some unsuccessful cavalry charges and Yokokawa launched a missile over the target before the break.
Yokokawa’s early blast set a second half tone. Yaran Sozer ticked “Be Spectacular” off his weekly to-do list when he produced the stop to thwart Dandenong City’s first real shot in anger on 57 minutes. Yet despite all the lovely moments, two pedestrian penalty calls decided an increasingly snippy game.
Aidara hit the deck and Juach converted on the hour. Anthony Lesiotis – who cops as much as he dishes out and is critical to Alexander’s push this season – was upended with few minutes left on the clock and Juach made no mistake from the spot.
By game’s end Heidelberg threatened to overwhelm the home side, with Ali appearing out of the ether and lurking with intent more than once and subs Choc Dau and Anthony Theodoropoulos both not scoring what they might have.
Nick Tolios has made beating Heidelberg habitual since his Kingston City days, but scoreline and manner of scoring aside, the Warriors never looked like losing this one and Dandenong City never looked a chance to win it.
Next up Alexander takes on Altona Magic.
