Adelaide sees off Sydney in friendly

Sky Blues coach Ian Crook fielded a youthful side that include players from the Australian Institute of Sport at Sydney’s Marconi Stadium and the team started brightly, despite being without many of its regular starters due to injury and international duty.

New signing Yairo Yau opened the scoring in the 12th minute with his second goal for the club, slotting a header past Adelaide goalkeeper Eugene Galekovic.

But the visitor levelled the match on 30 minutes thanks to a strike from Bruce Djite.

It was the Reds who came out firing in the latter stages of the first half as Cassio found the back of the net to put his side ahead going into the break.

Although both sides made numerous changes at half time the score remained locked at 2-1 until late in the match.

It looked as though Adelaide had wrapped up the match in the 83rd minute when Cameron Watson put one past substitute goalkeeper Vedran Janjetovic.

Sydney then responded five minutes later when Mitch Mallia blasted the ball into the roof of the net to make the score 3-2.

But it was Adelaide’s Evan Kostopoulos who sealed Adelaide’s victory with a goal in the dying minutes of the match.

Adelaide United shifts its focus to preparing for its AFC Champions League quarter-final first leg against Bunyodkor on Wednesday 19 September.

Sydney FC takes on Newcastle Jets in its next pre-season friendly on Sunday 9 September at Leichhardt Oval after it was forced to cancel another mid-week game, this time against Wednesday's meeting with APIA Leichhardt Tigers, due to a lack of available players.

"Unfortunately don’t have enough players to be able to put together a team to play matches twice a week at present," Sydney FC Coach Ian Crook said.

"We still have players in the final stages of rehabilitation from off season surgery and we also have a few niggly injuries.

"We've also got three boys away with the Australian U20s and it's not right to be pushing the fit players in the squad to play twice a week at this stage of the pre season."