{"id":13878,"date":"2014-03-31T22:26:41","date_gmt":"2014-03-31T12:26:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=13878"},"modified":"2014-04-25T22:27:08","modified_gmt":"2014-04-25T12:27:08","slug":"a-league-201314-round-25-besart-berisha-he-is-mental-and-he-is-mad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=13878","title":{"rendered":"A-League 2013\/14 – Round 25 – Besart Berisha, He Is Mental, And He Is Mad"},"content":{"rendered":"

BRISBANE ROAR 2 – MELBOURNE HEART 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

CENTRAL COAST MARINERS 2 WESTERN SYDNEY WANDERERS 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

MELBOURNE VICTORY 1 SYDNEY FC 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

WELLINGTON PHOENIX 0 ADELAIDE UNITED 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

PERTH GLORY 2 NEWCASTLE JETS 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

Besart Berisha Gets A Third Red Card<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"throattackle\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There’s no denying that since he joined the A-League three seasons ago, Besart Berisha has been a divisive, hot headed player who always pushed the limits with referees and was no stranger to trouble.\u00a0 And yet for two seasons, he managed to steer clear of seeing a red card.\u00a0 In fact, a fun little piece of trivia about the Roar once upon a time was that Berisha improbably never saw red and yet comparatively mild mannered players Henrique and Thomas Broich had both been sent off in their A-League careers.<\/p>\n

That all changed this season.\u00a0 A combination of injury and suspension has severely hampered Besart Berisha’s year.\u00a0 He’s still been good value in the short time he’s played.\u00a0 He’s netted eleven goals in sixteen games which would easily be the best goals to game ratio of any first choice striker in the league.\u00a0 And yet on Friday night in Suncorp, in his first game back from a red card suspension, Berisha went into the history books by becoming the first player to get sent off three times in a single season.\u00a0 It was an unfortunate challenge.\u00a0 A through ball saw Berisha and Perth Glory keeper Tando Velaphi in a foot race and Berisha’s sliding challenge saw his boot ride up over the ball and kick Velaphi flush in the throat.<\/p>\n

Was the red card justified?\u00a0 Possibly.\u00a0 Was there malicious intent from Berisha?\u00a0 Certainly not.\u00a0 It was just an unfortunate moment that compounded Berisha’s challenging final season for the Roar.\u00a0 At his best, he has been as good as he ever was, scoring goals at ease.\u00a0 Unfortunately, his wayward onfield behavior and nagging injuries have meant that he has played just half of the season.\u00a0 And as the Roar look to consolidate and get some stability leading into the finals, they will have to try and slot in Berisha who has had a far from ideal lead up and seems to be in a questionable head space.<\/p>\n

As for the rest of the team, the Roar showed great character once again and pulled off what I believe is their fourth come from behind victory in the season, dominating the chances and possession despite being a man down.\u00a0 The indomitable Henrique came on and duly played the part of super sub, scoring from outside the penalty area with no less than four defenders in front of him.<\/p>\n

Brisbane Roar have been the most consistent team in the competition and are rightly favourites heading into the finals.\u00a0 The X-factor of course is Besart Berisha and what he will do when he returns.\u00a0 I don’t think even he knows whats in store.<\/p>\n

News and Notes<\/strong><\/h2>\n
    \n
  • I was relieved to see Perth Glory snap a 12 game winless streak by coming from behind to beat the Jets 2-1.\u00a0 If there’s a bogey team that the Roar should fear in the finals, it is definitely the Jets.\u00a0 They face an uphill battle to make the finals but it is not impossible.<\/li>\n
  • Are Liverpool really going to win the EPL?\u00a0 It sure looks like it.\u00a0 Their fans are probably disappointed when they score less than four goals a game nowadays.<\/li>\n
  • The Socceroos horror run with injury continues as Tim Cahill limped off the field in his New York Red Bulls game this week.<\/li>\n
  • We’re still waiting for confirmation of Manchester City’s rumoured friendlies with Brisbane Roar and Melbourne Heart.\u00a0 Hurry up and make it official!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Besart Berisha gets sent off for a record third time<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":13879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[1086,342,1701],"class_list":["post-13878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-besart-berisha","tag-brisbane-roar","tag-melbourne-heart"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13878"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13880,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13878\/revisions\/13880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}