A quick-fire Carlo Armiento brace has been rendered inconsequential as Adelaide United Youth squandered a two-goal lead on their way to a 3-2 loss against Melbourne City Youth.
Armiento scored two goals in as many minutes but despite his sensational exploits, City overturned the deficit at CB Smith Reserve on Sunday.
It was an even start in the opening 20 minutes before Armiento opened the scoring in clinical fashion.
The 19-year-old broke forward before sliding the ball past City goalkeeper, Ahmad Taleb.
And in the blink of an eye he doubled Adelaide’s advantage moments later in the 24th minute.
https://twitter.com/aufc_YouthTeam/status/1076733726409641984
Armiento, from distance, spotted Taleb off his line with his audacious chip beating the shot-stopper.
With half-time approaching, City did pull a goal back through Dylan Pierias whose marauding run was rewarded after cutting inside and seeing his deflected effort fly beyond gloveman Isaac Richards.
City started the second stanza with the momentum and restored parity through Stefan Colakovski. Joshua Cavallo played a brilliant switch to get Colakovski in behind the Reds defence, who controlled and finished his effort past Richards.
The hosts would then be reduced to 10 players after Joshua Varga received his second yellow card just before the hour mark.
But despite United’s numerical advantage they failed to make it count and City ended up finding the winner on 76 minutes.
With Adelaide pushing numbers forward, City pounced on the counter-attack courtesy of some great combination play between Pierias and captain Moudi Najjar.
The former assisted the latter, who calmly buried his effort to seal all three points.
Adelaide, who drop to third place in the Conference A standings, will look to bounce back against Perth Glory Youth at Dorrien Gardens on 5 January.
Match details:
Sunday, 23 December 2018
Foxtel Y-League 2018/19 – Round 7
Melbourne City Youth 3 (Pierias 37’ Colakovski 53’ Najjar 76’)
Adelaide United Youth 2 (Armiento 23’ 24’)
Venue: CB Smith Reserve
