Sydney FC substitute Mitchell Mallia scored the winner against Adelaide United on Sunday night to lift the Sky Blues into the A-League’s top six.
The 19-year-old’s cool strike with 13 minutes remaining gave Sydney a 2-1 away triumph over the Reds, whose finals aspirations appear dead.
Sydney (30 points) jumped over Newcastle Jets (28 points) into sixth spot on the ladder with the vital victory before 8259 spectators at Hindmarsh Stadium.
Mallia’s 81st minute goal came after Adelaide’s Fabian Barbiero equalised following an opening half goal by Sydney’s Joel Chianese.
Chianese struck a tick into injury time in the opening half to give the Sky Blues a lead deserving of their dominance in possession.
After Adelaide goalkeeper Eugene Galekovic got caught in a crush of players from a corner, Reds defender Evgeniy Levchenko tried to head the ball clear of the danger zone.
But the header fell in Chianese’s direction, and the 22-year-old attacker swung his right foot to hip height and collected cleanly, striking the ball into net.
The breakthrough was just reward for Sydney, who claimed 63 per cent of possession in the opening half and restricted Adelaide to just one lonely shot on target.
But the tide turned in the second half, culminating in Barbiero’s 56th minute equaliser.
From a Dario Vidosic corner, Adelaide spearhead Sergio van Dijk headed towards goal and Barbiero, standing in front of Sydney goalkeeper Ivan Necevski, flicked a right footer into the net.
The goal revived the Reds, who had four scoring chances in the next 25 minutes but missed them all through a combination of bad luck and sterling defence.
And Mallia made Adelaide pay against the flow, when he controlled a long ball on the edge of the box and slipped a neat left footer across Galekovic and into the side netting.