Hume City coach Louie Acevski has desribed last night’s historic FFA Cup win over the Brisbane Strikers as an emotional roller coaster.
It took until the last kick of the second period of extra time to separate the City and the Brisbane Strikers, with City winning 4-3 in front of more than 1000 people at Broadmeadows Valley Stadium.
The game looked set to go to penalties, before a Liam Newman cross into City’s box was put over the line by Strikers Greig Henslee for an own goal in the 120th minute.
Seconds later the whistle went to give City the amazing win.
City opened the scoring through Nick Hegarty in the third minute, but they had to come from behind not once, but twice to get the win.
“It’s the biggest emotional roll coaster I have ever been involved with in soccer as a coach and player,” Acensvki told Star Weekly.
“It’s a great feeling and I’m ecstatic for the boys to get the win in the end.
“It’s the best atmosphere at a match I’ve been involved in.”
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Scores were 1-1 at half time and it stayed that way for most of the second half.
“We conceded a goal against Green Gully on the weekend early so we didn’t want that to happen again,” Acevski said.
“I thought we dominated the second half and the Strikers sat back and wanted to counter act.”
The Strikers tactic seemed to have worked when Scot Coulson scored in the 90th minute of the game.
“At 2-1 I thought we were out of the tournament,” Acevski said.
“It was an ugly time to let them score. I thought we were going to lose the game.”
Enter Marcus Schroen who would put the ball in the net a minute later to send the game into extra time.
History seemed to repeat itself in extra time with Coulson again putting the Strikers in front, before Schroen responded not long afterwards.
“Marcus carried the team getting on the end of the crosses with his leaping,” Acevski said.
“It was fantastic for him. He came back from a knee reconstruction 12 months ago.”
As time ticked down, Acevski like most people thought the game was going to a penalty shoot out.
“In extra time I was still confident we could get a third goal to level the scores and give ourselves a chance of victory and we did that,” Acevski said.
“A minute before [the winning goal] I was already thinking who would take the first, second, third, fourth and fifth penalty kicks.”
He said the win was reward for all the hard work the club had put in over the last couple of years.
Acevski said the club doesn’t mind who it draws in the round of 16, but he knows his dream matchup.
“It is what it is. We would definitely prefer a home game.
“I would love to play Melbourne Victory at home.
“We had a practice match against them 12 months ago and played well in front of 2000 people.
“I think we could get 3000-4000 people at the ground if we play Victory.”
