The Train Keeps Rolling For The Welly Nix With Another Win
After getting away with the three points despite a sloppy performance last week against Central Coast, the Wellington Phoenix got their quest for a perfect January off to the necessary start one quarter of the way through. ‘Twas a bit of a wake up call considering how they dropped their levels in that second half but it was also promising to see them successfully defending a lead despite not being at their best. This week, in front of their biggest home crowd of the season (9166 folks at Sky Stadium... which is decent but come on Wellywood, this Nix team is box office entertainment right now, let’s get 10k in two weeks when the Newcastle Jets are in town), they served up a lot more of the same... only a little better.
The first fifteen minutes unfolded at a rapid pace which worked beautifully into the Phoenix’s hands with several early opportunities, Callum McCowatt and Ulises Davila in particular looking sharp. There was no David Ball for this one after the injury he picked up last week. Josh Sotirio came in for him up front in the only change to the eleven – still no sign of Alex Rufer who has now missed five games in a row. His absence has been nicely covered by Cam Devlin’s emergence however this was the first time that David Ball had missed a start so uncharted territory there.
Ball’s been a massive influence this last month or two with his tireless work-rate and his ability to create opportunities (for others as much as himself). Without him there was always gonna be a lot of pressure on Ulises Davila – the Phoenix’s best player – to carry the load and, well... this probably counts as that, right?
A ninth of the season. Emphatic. Only Adam Le Fondre and Jamie Maclaren have more than him this season and they’re proper number nines whereas Davila often plays much deeper. It’s this kind of goal that we wanna see more of from Davila too, he’s never scared to shoot but this kind of precision and power isn’t always there. Sometimes he balloons them, sometimes he hits them straight at the keeper. But when he strikes them like this there’s no keeper in the league getting down to save it. Callum McCowatt’s another one capable of this, actually. He used to score these ones all the time for Eastern Suburbs last season, drifting in from the left and picking out a bottom corner. Haven’t seen that from him yet in a Phoenix jersey.
While the Nix were blitzing this one leading up to that goal it looked like they could run riot but to their credit Western Sydney recalibrated themselves after conceding. Having had a number of early sighters, the chances soon dried up for the Nix. Gary Hooper would last 79 tiring minutes for his longest run out in nine Phoenix games (which beats the 63 minutes he logged a week ago). You have to go back to December 2017 back in his Sheffield Wednesday days to find the last time he played a full ninety minutes but he seemed to come through this one alright, still battling hard at the end of it, so he’s slowly building up that tolerance and match fitness. Thing is, he didn’t have a single shot here. Neither did almost everybody else. McCowatt had four shots, all off target. Davila had three shots with one on target – the goal. The only other shot came pretty late and while it was worth the wait it does show that the Phoenix were less than at their best here once again.
Particularly in the second half when Nicolai Müller and Mitch Duke started to pull the strings for WSW and if it weren’t for a few crucial interventions from the old timers at the back, Steven Taylor and Luke DeVere, then this game could have easily gone in the other direction. Stefan Marinovic only had two saves to make but that doesn’t quite tell the full story as the Wanderers would have six shots more than the home side, granted a lot of them were from distance, and with a 1-0 lead you’re always extremely vulnerable.
That’s the situation we found ourselves in last week as well but this time instead of withdrawing into the shell (although some of that was enforced by Ball’s injury and Hooper’s scheduled substitution), Ufuk Talay kept things bold and threw on 18 year old Sam Sutton for the last 23 minutes in place of a typically industrious but ineffective-in-the-big-moments Jaushua Sotirio. Sutton didn’t have a massive amount to do but this was only his second A-League appearance and on his first he was a stoppage time sub who only had time to make one pass. Huge faith to throw him on as the first fella off the bench. And the second sub was another 18 year old: Ben Waine. Ben Waine who was the most experienced player on the bench and he’d only played three times prior to this season. Not having Rufer, Piscopo, Fenton, or Ball on available was always gonna stretch a thin squad but at the same time it’s pretty bloody exciting to look at a bench that reads:
Oli Sail – 23yo (Academy)
Liam McGing – 21yo
Te Atawhai Hudson-Wihongi – 24yo (Kiwi)
Callan Elliot – 20yo (Academy)
Walter Scott - 20yo
Ben Waine – 18yo (Academy)
Sam Sutton – 18yo (Acedemy)
Seven players all under the age of 24, five of them New Zealanders, four of them having come directly through the academy. There was a suspicion the bench might look something like this after seeing the lineup the reserves rolled out in the curtain-raiser and obviously you’d want a bit more experience on a regular day but this was a match with a few unavailabilities and it was those young fellas given the trust of their manager to see it out. Callan Elliot in his second consecutive matchday squad having not featured all season previously. Walter Scott in his first matchday squad since the fourth one of the season when he started in place of Libby Cacace for the second time during LC’s red card suspension. Te Atawhai Hudson-Wihongi with his third straight appearance off the bench (albeit only for a few seconds at the end) having only gotten one subs appearance in the previous ten games. And this for a team that already had Callum McCowatt (20), Cam Devlin (21), and Libby Cacace (19) out there playing full games. Academy players Louis Fenton and Alex Rufer would have been there or thereabouts but for injury. And 21 year old Reno Piscopo would have been too had he not been doing things like this for the Aussie U23s...
It’s funny, isn’t it, how Ufuk Talay seems to be doing all the things that Mark Rudan was praised for, only better and much quieter. I know I’ve said this a few times but the fury against Rudan for leaving is kinda hard to get my head around when, because of that drama, the Phoenix are now in such a hilariously better situation than they were before. (There are other reasons to be annoyed at Rudan, tbf, but the WP vs WU rivalry is plenty of fun so... I dunno, all’s well that ends well?).
This win over Western Sydney wasn’t by any means a 10/10 performance from the Nix but it was a banner day for the academy. For all the reasons above and for one much more important reason. Clinging to that 1-0 lead is always dangerous. It’s not until that second goal flies in that you can feel safely in control (in control but not complacent). It might have taken a while and it might have come after a couple too many close calls at the other end but when the second goal did finally arrived for the Phoenix it was simply majestic. And who better to score it than the reigning championship belt holder of the academy grads: Liberato Gianpaolo Cacace.
The first time I remember consciously watching Libby Cacace was for the reserves in the Premiership and he was playing in central defence as a bit of a stopgap with others unavailable, usually plying his trade as a defensive midfielder. That was only a couple years ago and he’s now the best left-back in the A-League at the tender ago of 19 years old. A first choice starter for club and country. He’s the most veteran savvy teenage footballer on the planet, he knows all the tricks in the books already, and if you asked me this time last year I’d have told you that he was ahead of Sarpreet Singh in his development and just look where Sarpreet’s found himself.
Quick pump of the brakes there, chief. The Sarpreet Singh thing makes it a short leap of the imagination to picture Cacace doing similar wonders but it’d be naive to think of Singh’s transfer to Bayern as anything other than a freak occurrence. This whole ‘It’s Only A Matter Of Time Until Cacace’s At A Big Club’ narrative is a little tiring for that reason because it’s such an unreasonable expectation to hold considering how much luck and fortune goes into one player getting spotted and signed above a thousand others. Ask Marco Rojas what the jump between A-League and top flight European leagues is like. I’m also sceptical how many clubs around the world would see him as being far enough above the rest of the pack to want to pay a transfer fee for a player with a year and a half left on his deal... granted there’s plenty of stupid money floating around in world footy so you never know.
What we can say for damn sure is that if the right Serie A club does slide into his DMs then Libby Cacace is as well suited as any kiwi player out there to make it work. Forget about his age. Forget about his humble demeanour. This dude is the real deal and talking about him with a focus on his potential and youth isn’t doing justice to what a top performer he is week after week.
Speaking of week after week, that’s nine games undefeated now for the Phoenix who briefly moved up to third on the ladder until Perth Glory matched their result to reclaim that spot on goal difference. But that’s all good because we’re only halfway through the month, with Brisbane away next Saturday evening (Brisbane whose only win since the start of December was against this same WSW team) and then Newcastle at home the week after. The Phoenix just tied their record undefeated mark. Win the next two and they’ll tie their record winning streak of five games. After that it’s Perth Glory away so not sure they’ll get the chance to beat it... but then why rule it out so soon? This team’s pretty bloody good and it’s the best possible compliment I can pay to them to say that the final whistle rings out with sadness each game because it means another long week before we can watch them strut their stuff again.
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