By Greg Blake
After a string of priceless moments during the now-ended historic winning sequence, Alexander supporters can forgive an untidy 20 minutes of football. The game itself is rarely as charitable. That Heidelberg came back from two down to finish 2-2 against St Albans was the upside.
It took half an hour and a Sebit Ngor masterpiece to gain some traction before an agonising 40-minutes of dominating scoring chances and getting clobbered by a fierce St Albans side – seven Saints went into the book – before Ngor struck again to level, just a tick inside the final ten minutes.
The punch in the guts was Heidelberg’s disjointed opening 20 minutes. An early miss, rookie referee nerves, intense St Albans pressure and the Saints hitting the scoreboard not once, but twice, conspired to turn an uneasy start into something else again.
The Warriors looked rattled, if only briefly The visuals of mouth agape, arms out, palms up type frustration can spread rapidly through a team facing a two-goal deficit inside 17 minutes. The upside? Friday night was as much the reveal of the true fabric of this 2025 team as any.
The two-goal deficit – last faced by the Warriors away back in round one against the Melbourne Knights – might have been fatal. The mid-season malaise as autumn becomes winter is not uncommon. Coming into the weekend Avondale had lost two of their past five games, Oakleigh two of four and Dandy Thunder had won just one game in a month.
The dramatic comeback against the Saints was rich with character, but might have been unnecessary had Jamal Ali’s 7th minute bullet-train pass into the path of Ngor not ended with some brave Marco Bulic goalkeeping at Ngor’s feet to settle an early one-on-one
St Albans are a perpetual nuisance to Alexander. They were the last team to hold Alexander goalless, in round 21 last season. On Friday night they took annoyance to a whole, new level. With the game just ten minutes old Oliver Dragicevic anticipated a Ben Collins outlet pass half a second quicker than anyone else, the turnover ending with Joey Monek putting Saints ahead.
Joseph Culina nailed St Albans’ second on the quarter hour, Bulic thwarted Anthony Lesiotis two minutes later and the chaotic opening 20 or so minutes threatened disaster for the Warriors, with Yaren Sozer pulling off a vital stop to thwart Josh Gulevski and St Albans in full flight.
It was Alexander’s third home game in succession in which they faced seventy minutes of remaining game time behind on the scoreboard. They ended last Friday night by closing out another can’t-put-down chapter of Heidelberg’s storybook 2025 season. Ngor provided the lifeline and inspiration. Starting on the half hour.
Thundering on to Ben Collins’ perfect seven iron from midfield, Ngor hooked the ball back from perilously close to the goal line with his right foot before wheeling around to steer a near perfect left-footer inside Bulic’s far post.
St Albans had their moments to clinch the game but Alexander’s comeback was completed 81 painstaking minutes in. Anthony Lesiotis sliced through midfield and delivered left, allowing Jay McGowan’s deft touch to meet the run of Dalibor Markovic, and his flat left hook across the goal face was met with another sparkling Ngor finish.
Alexander’s stylish revival has offered us days when we felt like kings of the world, but his is now the much less glamorous phase of the adventure, when cup and league commitments merge and the winter slog begins.
The near-calamitous St Albans game may prove a timely wake-up call as Heidelberg’s next appointment is a visit to the Lion’s den to face old rivals Preston, on Friday night.
