Substitute Sander Kartum has netted a crucial late goal to keep Wellington’s hopes of making the A-League Men’s finals afloat, upsetting a sub-par Melbourne Victory 1-0 at AAMI Park.<\/p>\n
Having not won against the Victory in Melbourne since 2017, the visitors were poised to continue their hoodoo and settle for a 0-0 stalemate on Sunday.<\/p>\n
A draw would have been a missed opportunity after the Phoenix had countless opportunities and dominated large parts of the contest, frustrating a Victory side who couldn’t overcome their opponents’ rigid defence.<\/p>\n
But 16 minutes after coming on, Kartum found Wellington’s deserved goal in the 89th minute when a lofted cross from Ifeanyi Eze found the Norwegian import on the right of the penalty area and he volleyed the ball in via the left post.<\/p>\n
The result for Wellington keeps their finals campaign alive as they move within one point of the sixth-placed Macarthur FC (31 points).<\/p>\n
For Melbourne, their hopes of claiming the Premier’s Plate are all but dashed as a victory would have brought them within two points of the second-placed Auckland (40 points), who they play next round.<\/p>\n
The Kiwis are only three points behind the ladder-leading Newcastle (43 points), who the Victory play in the following week, meaning three points from all three matches would lay the platform for a late run at the premiership.<\/p>\n
But after the loss, the Victory now sit eight points away from Newcastle with three games remaining.<\/p>\n
Wellington had an early chance go begging when Corban Piper met a cross at the back post but clattered his shot into the crossbar.<\/p>\n
Things worsened for Melbourne when Juan Mata slipped awkwardly and was left gripping his elbow before Sebastian Esposito was substituted off in the 21st minute after falling on his head.<\/p>\n
After scores were locked 0-0 at halftime, Mata returned with a bandage over his elbow and helped Victory begin to slowly work themselves into the contest.<\/p>\n
Wellington had another opportunity go to waste when defender Bill Tuiloma found himself free from a corner, but dragged his header wide of the left post in the 83rd minute.<\/p>\n
Kartum finally rewarded the visitors with his strike and the Phoenix withstood a desperate Melbourne to win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Substitute Sander Kartum has netted a crucial late goal to keep Wellington’s hopes of making the A-League Men’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,111,139,69,57694,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-365403","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-phoenix","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}