Alessandro Del Piero showed his class as the pressure grew on Riki Herbert as Sydney recorded a record 7-1 victory over Wellington Phoenix at Allianz Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
Sydney FC’s season is now well and truly back on track as Del Piero dazzled scoring four goals in Sydney’s best game in a very long time.
It was a new combination in attack for Sydney FC with Joel Griffiths playing his first match for the club and promising to be the missing link for the Sky Blues.
11 minutes in Griffiths went a long way to justifying his typical big talk as Del Piero was left in space allowing him to chip over the Wellington defense for Griffiths to score on his Sydney debut.
Three goals in six minutes sealed things for Sydney FC before the half-hour mark as they tore Wellington apart.
It all started in the 21st minute as Terry McFlynn found Del Piero in the box who turned his marker and hit a curling strike in to the upper left corner of the net.
Two minutes later Sydney FC made it three thanks to a controversial penalty after contact between Jason Culina and Andrew Durante which allowed Del Piero to step up and score his second putting Sydney FC 3-0 up.
Del Piero was involved again in the 26th minute as Sydney made it four, releasing Ali Abbas down the left who crossed for Culina to volley home hard and low.
Wellington had hoped that would be all for the half but Del Piero completes his hat-trick in the 39th minute as he ran at the defense and steadied to shoot only to fool his man, creating space and hitting a stunning goal to give Sydney a 5-0 half-time lead.
Wellington Phoenix came out from the break a much better side but never even looked like making a serious dent the five goal deficit that faced them.
Sydney FC were the next to break through though and did so 20 minutes from time as again Del Piero did it by himself running through the Phoenix defense and easily scoring his fourth of the night.
11 minutes from time Ben Sigmund scored for Wellington with a solid header to give the New Zealand fans something to cheer about but it changed little as in the 89th minute Yairo Yau stepped up to score Sydney’s seventh keeping Wellington firmly locked in last place.
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