Jersey farce mars Brisbane Roar's ACL loss to Filipino side
Brisbane coach John Aloisi has unloaded on his side's apparent complacency after an embarrassing 3-2 loss in their AFC Champions League (ACL) playoff against Filipino club Ceres-Negros.
Despite only being in the second week of their pre-season, the Philippines Football League champions stormed past the struggling Roar at the Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre.
Brisbane, who sit eighth in the A-League with four wins and four draws from 17 games this season, opened the scoring through Massimo Maccarone but had little else to smile about in front of just 1,279 fans.
A double to Spaniard Bienvenido Maranon put his side ahead - his second prompting celebrations that earned the striker a yellow card and sent the bench crazy - before Omid Nazari gave the visitors a two-goal buffer in the 75th minute.
Eric Bauteac smashed home the Roar's second in the 85th minute but the hosts were unable to find an equaliser in a frantic and foul-heavy finish to the game.
"They obviously underestimated them, I know I didn't ... I knew they could cause problems," a livid Aloisi said post-game.
"Even when we went 1-0 up the players must've thought they were going to cruise through that game.
"You can't think you're a professional footballer because you put on a jersey; you need to act like a professional each day you turn up to training and play and represent this club. Tonight was not good enough from anyone."
Things were at their lowest in a bizarre period of play midway through the second half that saw the Roar playing with just 10 men for more than five minutes when Bauteac's numbers fell off his shirt.
Stuck shirtless on the sideline, the Frenchman was unable to return to the field until he had the No.22 reinstated to the back of his jersey.
He tried wearing No.30, but was eventually allowed back on with a comically taped-up No.77 on show.
To that Aloisi just shrugged with embarrassment, saying that he "couldn't do everything" when asked why there wasn't a second shirt available.
Tellingly, Maranon said his team grew in belief as soon as he saw the Roar's tardy ball movement.
"Before we came here we didn't know we could win this game but after the minute we (saw them) passing the ball from one side to the other side (we did)," he said.
Coach Risto Vidakovic said it was a momentous win for the club but also hinted that complacency may have played a part in the result.
"I didn't expect this, we didn't have enough time to prepare this game," he said.
"It's not easy to motivate the players when you play against a smaller club, it's a normal thing, even if the players know the importance of the game."
Roar return to A-League action at the Central Coast Mariners on Saturday, while Ceres-Negros progress to an ACL playoff against cashed-up Chinese Super League club Tianjin Quanjian next Tuesday.
