Marco Tulio has well and truly arrived in the Isuzu UTE A-League.
After a slow start to life in Gosford, the Brazilian striker has shot to life in the last five days, backing up his maiden goal for Central Coast Mariners against Sydney FC last Saturday with a strike that will live long in the history of the F3 Derby.
Tulio received the ball just inside his own attacking half following a strong challenge from team-mate Jacob Farrell. Instead of looking for the pass, the 24-year-old spotted Newcastle Jets goal-keeper Jack Duncan off his line.
Without any hesitation, Tulio went for the spectacular and it came off to a tee, chipping Duncan with expert precision to open the scoring for the Mariners and put himself firmly in the reckoning for goal of the season.
His night wasn’t over either, turning provider later in the contest with a lovely pass to Jason Cummings – who made no mistake in doubling their lead and giving Central Coast some breathing room on the score-sheet.
In the end, his contributions were key, as the Mariners ran away with a convincing 3-0 win over the Jets – thus, exacting revenge for their loss in the previous meeting ten days prior and launching them into third place on the table.
And it looks as if the Mariners coach Nick Montgomery has himself one formidable striking tandem – in Tulio and Cummings – that is only just starting to reach its full potential.
“Marco is an unbelievable talent,” Mariners coach Nick Montgomery told Paramount Plus.
“I sign these players like Beni (N’Kololo) and no one would’ve heard of him but the guy (Tulio) came from Sporting Lisbon. He had a 30-40 million dollar price tag on him, if he did well there. He’s Brazilian, he’s a special player.
“Not many players score that goal in world football… Now he’s getting confident. His wife and his kids here.
“Jason (Cummings) needed that goal. I told him to take the World Cup handbrake off… He’s been working hard but you go away for three weeks, in the national team, you don’t play much, you come back sick and it’s not easy so he’s had to work hard to get back.
“I’m really happy for him getting his goal tonight because he’s a top player.”
Overall, it was a stunning showing from the Mariners from back-to-front, keeping their first clean sheet in four games to go with their electric attacking form on the night – that is now the league’s best (competition high 18 goals).
And if beating your local rivals wasn’t enough reason to turn it on, Montgomery, also gave the players a little bit more of an extra incentive to perform on the night – before they head into a tough stretch against Melbourne City and Melbourne Victory during the Christmas week.
“I dangled the carrot,” Montgomery said.
“We’ve had a tough period, the boys have been off for the World Cup and stuff so I said: ‘win the game tonight and have Christmas morning off’. My wife asked for it; she said ‘if you go in on Christmas Day, I’m going to kill you’.
“I said: ‘if we don’t win, you’re (the squad) going in, but if we win, we’ll do something on the Zoom call. We will give you something to do and obviously we travel on Boxing Day.
“So fair play to the boys tonight, they took that carrot and they deserved it. They worked hard and it’s been a tough couple of weeks.”
