{"id":3259,"date":"2010-11-03T22:59:16","date_gmt":"2010-11-03T12:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=3259"},"modified":"2010-11-03T23:06:26","modified_gmt":"2010-11-03T13:06:26","slug":"a-league-round-13-brisbane-roar-vs-wellington-phoenix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=3259","title":{"rendered":"A-League Round 13: Brisbane Roar vs Wellington Phoenix"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Wellington Phoenix and All Whites coach Ricky Herbert<\/p><\/div>\n

Ricky Herbert is a man who never loses.<\/p>\n

Ricky will always make sure that he dumps a girlfriend before they get a chance to dump him.\u00a0 He always back the horse with the shortest odds and he buys homogenized milk.\u00a0 It’s this cautious approach to life that has made Ricky a world-renowned football manager.\u00a0 His conservative, ultra-defensive style of play has seen him successfully draw matches against opponents ranging from Marlboro Boys College First XI to the Italian national team when they were the defending champions at the World Cup this year.<\/p>\n

It’s also lead to the best post-WW2 home record in Australasian football.\u00a0 His Wellington Phoenix side have not lost a game at Westpac Stadium since October 2008, a streak of 24 games without a defeat.\u00a0 I don’t know the exact figure but he probably had as many as two victories in that streak.<\/p>\n

So when the Brisbane Roar headed to the Cake Tin to play the Nix in a midweek encounter, even the most optimistic Roar supporter would be happy to settle for a draw.\u00a0 You can’t beat Ricky at his own game.\u00a0 Not on his home turf.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the Roar had something working in their favour: the All Whites striker and former Phoenix player Kosta Barbarouses.\u00a0 Ever since he left the Phoenix for the Roar, its become apparent that he has some kind of clause in his contract that states he must always score a goal against his former club.\u00a0 This time he only took 3 minutes.<\/p>\n

Aside from a brief hiccup when Tim Brown equalized with a freak goal from the edge of the box, the Roar continued to show their dominating form.\u00a0 Crisp passing and clever ball retention were the order of the day.\u00a0 German import Thomas Broich and Massimo Murdocca reliably orchestrated the free flowing football in the middle of the park whilst frontman Reinaldo reliably blazed the ball over the bar time and again.<\/p>\n

On the stroke of halftime, Broich hit a scorching shot at goal which took a deflection off a Phoenix defender and ended up in the back of the net.\u00a0 Once the second half begun, Ricky Herbert was caught out of his comfort zone.\u00a0 His side couldn’t just stack eleven men behind the ball and play counter attacking football.\u00a0 He had to make some substitutions and add some firepower up front.\u00a0 Unfortunately, none of the Phoenix players know how to play an attacking style of football and simply fell apart.\u00a0 Murdocca added a third goal in the 76th minute for the Roar and then Mitch Nicholls added the proverbial cherry on top with a fourth goal in injury time.<\/p>\n

After the full time whistle, Ricky Herbert spontaneously combusted and the Roar left New Zealand as the first team to come away with 3 points from Westpac Stadium in over 24 months.\u00a0 They now sit atop the A-League table having charged to an eight game unbeaten streak.\u00a0 They don’t have long to rest.\u00a0 This Saturday, they have a home game against the second placed Adelaide United, who they have never beaten at home in the history of the competition.<\/p>\n

BRISBANE ROAR 4 – WELLINGTON PHOENIX 1<\/strong><\/h2>\n

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\n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ricky Herbert is a man who never loses. Ricky will always make sure that he dumps a girlfriend before they get a chance to dump him.\u00a0 He always back the horse with the shortest odds and he buys homogenized milk.\u00a0 It’s this cautious approach to life that has made Ricky a world-renowned football manager.\u00a0 His …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[218,342,676],"class_list":["post-3259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-a-league","tag-brisbane-roar","tag-ricky-herbert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3259","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=3259"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3267,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3259\/revisions\/3267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}