Sydney FC striker Adam Le Fondre wasted two stoppage-time penalties as a nine-man Wellington Phoenix claimed a controversy-laden 1-0 win in the Isuzu UTE A-League.
Ufuk Talay’s Wellington hadn’t beaten Sydney since 2018 but had to do so two men down after Bozhidar Kraev (double booking) and Nicholas Pennington (violent conduct) were both dismissed by referee Shaun Evans in the last 20 minutes at Allianz Stadium on Saturday.
Sydney had a Rhyan Grant goal chalked off for offside with half an hour to go but they had two gilt-edged chances to snatch a draw in added time.
Wellington defender Tim Payne was penalised for a handball but Le Fondre was denied from the spot by an Oli Sail save.
Just when Wellington thought the madness had subsided, Evans signalled that he wanted to consult VAR and on inspection he found that Wellington’s Callan Elliot had used his hand to stop a cross back into the box.
This time, however, Sail wasn’t required with Le Fondre skying his effort over the bar as Wellington hung on for a seismic victory.
The defeat for Steve Corica, who was involved in plenty of touchline spats with former team-mate Talay, means his side have just one win in six games since their return to Allianz Stadium.
Oskar Zawada grabbed the only goal of the game when Sydney themselves were down to 10 men after Patrick Yazbek had been taken off for a concussion test.
The Pole was played into the box by Clayton Lewis and after beating an on-rushing Andrew Redmayne was able to put Wellington ahead.
Winger Robert Mak had a couple of chances to level for Sydney, Wellington will feel they should have doubled their tally when Kraev failed to finish past Redmayne.
Grant thought he had got the Sky Blues back into the game after Le Fondre flicked on a cross, only for the linesman’s flag to be raised.
Sydney were gifted an avenue back into the game when Kraev was dismissed for clattering into Mak and their luck continued when Pennington was shown a straight red for a fracas with Max Burgess with five minutes of regulation time left.
Evans only brandished a yellow at Burgess and Sydney surged forward.
Their forays into the box eventually resulted in Le Fondre’s two penalties but with the Englishman unable to finish, Wellington held on.
