Still got another few weeks of preseason for most European clubs but they don’t wait around in Denmark. The Superliga is already underway for the 2026-27 campaign and for as long as Callum McCowatt remains a Silkeborg player he is going to be starting games for them
That East Coast Bays vs Auckland City meeting was the only men’s league game to take place this week on account of the main event that was the Chatham Cup quarter-finals. Eight teams remained, only four would still be standing at the end of it.
Nobody was expecting Elijah Just to remain a Motherwell player beyond this transfer window. Not after the twelve months he’s just had, shortlisted for the Scottish Premiership Player of the Year and then scoring three goals at the World Cup where he was New Zealand’s best performer.
Friday night under lights at Ferrymead Park was the scene for a second versus third scrap-out between Ferrymead Bays and Coastal Spirit... although the scrapping only went in one direction…
You never quite know what the situation is when a player is released by a club. After Hannah Blake was let go by Durham last week, that could have been the English club saying ka kite after two years…
Might as well start with a heavy win on this side too because Wellington Olympic 9-0 FC Western was a completely anticipated result but the margin was something else, considering how Western had been going alright of late
The All Whites turned up to the 2026 FIFA World Cup with two stated intentions: to win a game and to progress to the knockout stages. They did neither of those things.
Sixteen teams remained, eight of them have now been eliminated after the fourth round of the Chatham Cup took place over the weekend. Still regional match-ups to this stage but a surprising number of non-top tier teams made it this far up north to keep things interesting
You won’t be seeing Emma Pijnenburg in a Wellington Phoenix jersey next season because she’s heading back to the Netherlands. She already spent a couple years with Feyenoord before joining the Nix…
The top of the Central League table has taken another reshuffle after Napier City Rovers won 3-2 against Wellington Olympic in a fantastic game of footy. Luke Stoupe put Olympic ahead after 23 mins…
For a while there, we had room to dream. The All Whites made it to their third game still in with a chance of making the knockout rounds, all it would have needed was the greatest result in the history of football in Aotearoa.
The saying goes “No Payne, No Gain” therefore by logical extension Much Payne must equal Much Gain. Two years of contracted Tim Payne is a lot of Payne so when the biggest club in Paraguay, Club Olimpia, agreed a transfer for Tim Payne after the World Cup…
It was all going swell at half-time. Finn Surman’s towering (unmarked) header and another intense, energetic performance from the All Whites, full of clever interplay and sturdy defence, had the lads leading 1-0 at the break against Mo Salah and his Pharaohs
This was the week that the Oceania Pro League players returned. Four weeks after Auckland FC lifted that championship (overshadowed by another one they lifted that same weekend), we have begun to see the various kiwi players involved in that competition dispersed back around the league
In 1982, the objective was simply to get to a first World Cup amidst an absolute odyssey in qualifying. In 2010, it was time to show that New Zealand belonged at that level by grinding out some results. In 2026, it’s not only about getting back to the World Cup, it’s not only about getting results…
It was another cup weekend this time around with the Chatham Cup and Kate Sheppard Cup both reaching their fourth rounds. That’s last 32 teams for the Chats, last 16 teams for the KSC
A few spare days after Haiti whupped the All Whites 4-0 (admittedly in an unserious warm-up game), their women’s team completed the set with a 2-1 win over the Football Ferns. Neither team had ever played against Haiti before... not sure we’ll ever want to play them again after how that all went.
A-League Premiership in year one. A-League Championship in year two. Even a cheeky Oceania Pro League title in there for good measure. It hasn’t taken long for Auckland FC to pack that trophy cabinet full
The loss against Haiti was rubbish from the All Whites but at least it was misleading rubbish. Most of the damage was done after Darren Bazeley began making wholesale changes, sharing the minutes around to get his whole squad moving.
The funky thing about this round is that the top four, separated by just two points, all played each other... and nothing’s any clearer now than it was a week ago. That included a wonderful game between Western Suburbs and Napier City Rovers which…