Saturday 31st May 2014
Lockhart Stadium, Fort Lauderdale Attendance 5,572
The Cosmos ensured their challenge for the Spring Championship would go until the final week after a fortunate 3v0 victory over Fort Lauderdale which saw the Cosmos outplayed for long periods.
Right from the opening whistle the home side were on the front foot and a ball splitting the Cosmos defensive line required Maurer to be quickly off his line to clear the danger. The match was short on goalmouth action, but a moment of brilliance almost brought about the opening goal. Shawn Chin robbed the ball off Jimmy Nealis, and spotting Maurer off his line attempted an audacious effort from halfway inside the Cosmos half. With Maurer scrambling backwards the effort hit the bar, a real let off for the visitors and in particular Nealis.
The Strikers continued to create chances and Mark Anderson beat the Cosmos defensive line, but could not get enough on his flick past Maurer who managed to stop the effort. Chin had caused Nealis problems all half, and he had a sight of goal towards the end of the first half after soon sloppy play from the Cosmos defence, but Chin's effort was curled wide of the mark.
Without Senna, Ayoze and Diaz the Cosmos were struggling to create anything of note, with the Strikers Keeper not tested with anything of note at all in the first half.
Just 6mins into the 2nd half there was a power outage resulting in a break in play for an extended period, but it didn't alter the pattern of the game as soon after the restart Fort Lauderdale came close to making the breakthrough. Chin was at the heart of it again as he crossed from the right wing and Ebber struck the far post with an effort as the Cosmos rode their luck again.
Chin continued to cause havoc and went down in the area minutes later, but the referee ignored appeals for a penalty for the home side.
Having been outplayed for virtually the entire 90mins the Cosmos took the lead on 64mins when Alves was adjudged to have committed a foul in the area, with Stokkelien converting the spot kick to give Cosmos an undeserved lead.
The Fort Lauderdale crowd became more incensed at the referee as Roversio dragged Darnell King down as he raced towards goal, only for the referee to brandish a yellow card, however there seemed to be covering defenders, saving the Cosmos defender from an early exit.
A frustrating night for the Strikers got worse as the Cosmos unbelievably snatched 2 late goals. On 83mins Nane's shot was going wide until it struck substitute Ockford who diverted it into the Fort Lauderdale goal to deliver another sucker punch to the home side.
Any fight the home side had left was sucked out of them 2mins later when Szetela got on the end of a Guenzatti pass to slam the ball high into the net to give the game a barely believable scoreline.
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