The Wanderers won a tale of two teams struggling to make an impact on the season as Bozhidar Kraev scored the only goal of the game to take all three points in a hard to watch slogfest on a dog of a surface in Brisbane.

Brisbane Roar were looking for their first home win in 334 days and the Wanderers wanted their first win against the Roar since 2021 as well as their first away win against them in 6 years. Jack Clisby's 250th A-League appearance last weekend wasn't added to due to an injury and with Aiden Simmons not travelling either it was Gabriel Cleur returning from a month long injury absence on one side with Anthony Pantazopoulos on the other.

Cleur created a corner with some neat work on the right flank and Juan Mata delivered a glorious corner that gave Kraev his goal on a silver platter. The big Bulgarian found open space on the edge of the 6 yard box, Lucas Herrington came flying in to head it away but he was a head too short to make contact and Kraev made no mistake to head it down and to the right of Macklin Freke to make it 1-0 in the 7th minute.

Juan Mata came off injured shortly after his assist with a hamstring injury. He was chasing down a ball and broke down, knowing immediately something had gone wrong. He came straight off and was replaced by Mo Al-Taay.

Brisbane had their first chance after 20 minutes. Alex King decided that a ball coming off the chest of a Wanderers player was a handball, and the Roar nearly turned the set piece into an equaliser. Luckily the scrambling defence did enough to stop a clear shot on goal and Lawrence Thomas went down well to smother the ball at the feet of Herrington. John O'Shea flashed a shot wide of the goal in the 27th. It was the most clear cut chance his team had by that point.

The Roar continued to press and 10 minutes from time they had a great chance to equalise through Adam Zimarino. Open space on the right flank allowed the Roar to find Zimarino with room to shoot, his first touch took him slightly wide and it was enough of a delay to allow Alex Bonetig to sprint across in cover defence and make a diving block to keep the damage to a corner that the Roar wasted.

A pair of near disasters in defence for the Roar were lucky not to be punished with goals. The first was a suicidal sideways pass from the defensive wing into their own penalty area, Borrello was lurking, took the ball off Herrington and scored only for a foul to be awarded for a shirt pull from Borrello. Freke nearly spilled the ball into his own net seconds later, not jumping high enough to block Zac Sapsford's cross and it went through his hands but not over the line before the keeper grabbed it at the second attempt. Roar prevented the Wanderers going two ahead after more calamitous attempts at playing out, last ditch defending blocking Sapsford from his 5th A-League goal of the season. The two teams headed into the break with the score as it had been from the 7th minute, the Wanderers clearly the dominant side but as usual, lacking the attacking thrust to convert their chances into an even bigger lead.

Both sides made changes at the resumption. For the Wanderers, Jarrod Carluccio and Marcus Antonsson replaced Cleur and Borrello respectively. Brisbane replaced Louis Zabala with Corey Brown in defence. Brown received the first yellow card of the half on the hour mark, dragging down Nicolas Milanovic blatantly in frustration at the linesman correctly judging the ball to have stayed in play on the sideline.

Pantazopoulos took a shot on his right foot after cutting back inside, he missed wide right but it would probably have been ruled out by VAR for a potential handball if it had. Roar took off Keegan Jelacic & Zimarino to introduce Florin Berenguer and Jacob Brazete for the final 20 minutes. Brisbane had a lifeline after a missed offside in the build up to what seemed to be a match sealing goal to Milanovic, with Sapsford drifting offside when he received the ball from Priestman who perhaps took some of the blame for holding onto the ball too long, Sapsford's cut back inside was met by a first time Milanovic shot he put away easily. Thomas had little to do so far but he pulled out a brilliant diving save to keep his team in front shortly after the disallowed goal.

Scott Neville entered the pitch for his 300th and final A-League appearance. During his 17 year A-League career he played for the Wanderers in two seasons, playing 51 games in the Red & Black including scoring the only goal for the team in the 2015/16 losing Grand Final effort against Adelaide. Zac Sapsford also made way with James Temelkovski coming on. Walid Shour was the last roll of the dice for the Roar and he replaced Sam Klein. The unusual situation of a substitute himself being substituted occurred in the 2nd last minute of regulation time. Mo Al-Taay having entered the game in the 10th minute existed it in the 88th, with Dean Pelekanos introduced in his place.

4 minutes of stoppage time ticked down slowly, the Roar having a long shot at goal that grazed the crossbar. It was the final chance of the match, the Roar failing to get a sight of goal in the final seconds. The match as a whole summed up with the Roar dribbling and passing it around their backline on halfway in the final seconds despite being behind. They failed to attempt a last long ball attack and Alex King had no choice but to call full time on the game and Scott Neville's professional career.

It was a tepid and uninspiring slog played on an awful surface, one that looks to have claimed an injury to Juan Mata as the Wanderers head into a derby. Sydney FC will not be fearing their visitors at all next Saturday and despite the win tonight, if the Wanderers come out with that same lack of intensity they will get punished unlike tonight. 

The Wanderers next match is against Sydney FC at Moore Park on Saturday the 8th of February with kick-off at 7:35pm.

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