Players of Australia's Western Sydney Wanderers hold the Asian Champions League Trophy as they celebrate after beating Saudi Arabia's Al-Hilal at King Fahd International Stadium in Riyadh Saturday. — Reuters SYDNEY — Australia hailed Western Sydney Wanderers' remarkable rise from new club to AFC Champions League winners in only two years after they became the first side from the country to win the Asian title Sunday. Some 5,000 joyous Wanderers fans watched the game on a giant screen in their heartland of Parramatta and celebrated the club's 1-0 aggregate win over Saudi Arabia's Al-Hilal in Riyadh in style. Fans hugged each other and set off red flares as the Wanderers held on for a 0-0 draw after winning the home leg 1-0 to clinch the Asian club title in only their third season. Football Federation Australia chief executive David Gallop said the Wanderers' triumph was “one of the most amazing sporting stories seen in Australian sport.” “This triumph will resonate throughout the game and across our nation. The impact will be felt beyond sport and will speak to Australia's future in the Asian century and football's pivotal role,” Gallop said. “At the heart of this success is one of the most amazing sporting stories we've ever seen in Australian sport. “It's a start-up less than three years old that today stands proudly as the champion of Asia. That says it all.” The Sydney Morning Herald congratulated the club for achieving the “seemingly impossible to become the first Australian champions of Asia.” “A club that didn't exist three years ago has now clinched the greatest result in Australian club football history by toppling Asia's club of the century to win a historic champions league title. FIFA chief Sepp Blatter joined in and posted: “Incredible achievement. Congratulations @wswanderersfc on your #AFCfinal win. See you in Morocco at the #ClubWC!“ The Wanderers will now qualify for the riches of next month's FIFA Club World Cup in Morocco, featuring continental champions, where they could face Real Madrid among others. The title triumph was built on the team's resilient defense and the crucial saves of the tournament's Most Valuable Player goalkeeper Ante Covic. The Wanderers kept their goal intact through the four-game semifinal and final series. Western Sydney went one better than Adelaide United, which lost the two-leg AFC Champions League final to Japan's Gamba Osaka in 2008. Wanderers coach Tony Popovic was still coming to terms with his team's “surreal” victory, after being dismissed a day earlier as a “small side.” “It's a little bit surreal for me,” he told reporters. “They did it just two years after their club's formation.” Laurentiu Reghecampf, Al-Hilal's Romanian head coach, had Friday promised that the Wanderers would “stay a small team.” Now they are anything but small, said Popovic. “Today we are the biggest in Asia. That's the reality,” he said, adding the Wanderers had made a “fantastic accomplishment in such a short space of time.” A subdued Reghecampf, however, said his team should have won and blamed the referee Yuichi Nishimura, of Japan. “Today we played against the other team. We played also against the referee,” Reghecampf said. “I think we were the better team. We don't deserve to lose the game.” “We don't have the resources or the funds that some of these other teams have but we have something that money can't buy, the desire to win, the resilience to play for each other and do anything we can to win. No money can buy that,” added Popovic. Goalkeeper Covic was named man of the match after a string of superb stops but Japanese referee Yuichi Nishimura proved a bigger frustration for the home fans. Nishimura, lambasted for giving Brazil a soft penalty in the opening World Cup match against Croatia in June, turned down two strong appeals for an Al-Hilal spot kick. Popovic said he spoke to the referee after his players, and Covic in particular, were repeatedly targeted by fans shining lasers in their eyes. “In the end we're the ones smiling.” Just over two years ago the Wanderers only had three members of staff as they cobbled together an expansion team after the demise of Gold Coast United. — Agencies
