Western United and Melbourne Victory have shared the points after a 2-2 draw at AAMI Park , a game in which both sides surrendered second-half leads.
After seizing the initiative just before halftime through Daniel Penha, only to be pegged back by Ben Folami and Chris Ikonomidis, United appeared set for a dispiriting defeat headed into the final minutes of Thursday's match.
However, Penha came up clutch for his side again when he found Ben Garuccio in space to fire home in the 90th minute and level things up.
United should have had a 2-0 lead in the 56th minute after Garuccio was adjudged to have been dragged down by Salim Khelifi, only for Michael Ruhs to put his penalty far too close to Paul Izzo.
Victory hadn’t registered a shot on target until then, but the lifeline allowed them to get back into the game, with Folami and Ikonomidis introduced off the bench soon after.
United boss John Aloisi said he wasn’t sure why Ruhs, rather than the in-form Penha, had taken the spot kick.
“Normally, Daniel is the penalty taker,” he said.
“And normally when you're feeling confident and you're the penalty taker you take it.
“I'll find that out and see what we could do better for that next time.”
Though now unbeaten in their past four games and with just one loss from six, United missed the chance to move off the foot of the A-League Men's table with what would have been a third straight win.
“The boys are down in there because they know that we were by far the better team for long periods of that game,” Aloisi said.
“We felt that we let them back in the game.”
For their part, the point prevented Victory from closing to within a game of league-leading Central Coast and Wellington, with four fixtures remaining on their regular-season slate.
Tony Popovic’s side have drawn half their 22 games in 2023/24 and Thursday was the fourth game this campaign in which they held a lead heading into the final five minutes, only to concede a late equaliser - a difference of eight points.
“It's always frustrating when it goes against you, especially when you put yourself in that type of position to win the game,” Popovic said.
“We really need to get better at seeing the game out.”
The Victory boss also felt his side were unlucky not to receive a penalty in just the third minute after a handball by Ruhs, which VAR denied after spying a different handball by Damien Da Silva moments earlier.
