The Welly Nix Title Quest: Previewing An Elimination Final vs Perth Glory
The Facts
Wellington Phoenix versus Perth Glory, 7pm on Saturday in the first A-League Elimination Final. That’s the proposition after Melbourne City beat Western United 3-1 in the final game of the regular season to ensure that the Phoenix finished third while Western United ended in fifth and will face Brisbane Roar on Sunday night in the other Elimination Final. If the Welly Nix win against Perth then they’ll advance to face Melbourne City in the Semi-Final on Wednesday evening at 7pm and then the Grand Final will take place on Sunday at 8.30pm.
That’s it. That’s the Indigo Plateau path to the championship right there... and all things considered it’s worked out alright for the Welly Nix. Better than they perhaps deserved based on the last six games but league play rewards the entire campaign and for a few months there the Nix were as good as anyone in the comp. Good enough that despite one win from six games they’ve actually ended up in the same position that they restarted in. And, further praise to the footballing deities, that reward is a playoff against the team they got that one win against.
Okay they missed out on a golden chance to move up to second. That could still come back to bite them over a hectic upcoming week. But at least the Nix didn’t slide any further down. Gotta remember that third place on the ladder is the best finish this club has ever mustered. This will be only the sixth time the Nix have made the finals. Sure they struggled to the end, living off super potions and revives (to keep the Indigo Plateau theme going - IYKYK)... but even a worst-case scenario from here still leaves plenty to celebrate.
The WNTQ is what it is. That’s the end goal, the big boss, that’s old mate Lance with his husky Dragonite. Before that we’ve gotta go through Lorelai and Bruno in this Elimination Final – who in fairness were always pretty easy as long as you had a strong thunder dude and a strong water dude (if you never played them original Pokemon games then you’ll be pretty lost by now, apologies, I’ll stop).
Anyway, this is the complete list of Wellington Phoenix Finals Footy matches:
2009-10: Wellington Phoenix 1-1 Perth Glory (Won 4-2 on Pens)
2009-10: Wellington Phoenix 3-1 Newcastle Jets (AET)
2009-10: Sydney FC 4-2 Wellington Phoenix
2010-11: Adelaide United 1-0 Wellington Phoenix
2011-12: Wellington Phoenix 3-2 Sydney FC
2011-12: Perth Glory 3-2 Wellington Phoenix (AET)
2014-15: Wellington Phoenix 0-2 Melbourne City FC
2018-19: Melbourne Victory 3-1 Wellington Phoenix
Eight matches, three wins and five defeats (including three games that went to extra time or beyond). Last season broke a streak of three seasons in a row without final footy but it’s been eight years since the Nix last won a playoff game. And we’ve never won one outside of Aotearoa. Then again we’d also never finished higher than fourth on the ladder before this season but look what happened.
The Road Into Town
Safe to say that a lot of the remaining optimism for the Welly Nix Title Quest stems from that idea that things will click into gear once the games reach must-win status. That whole one win from six games thing doesn’t seem to bode well for the Nix yet playoff football is a different proposition. Suddenly being the team that can’t seem to put its opponents away but which is always involved in close games becomes an advantage not a problem. You keep yourself in it for as long as you can, bend but don’t break at the back, then hope you can put at least one timely goal away if you create enough chances.
That’s the tactical hope. There’s also the mentality of the playoffs to fall back upon. As a player, this is the target you’ve been aiming for all along. These are the games that define a season so they’re the games you get up for most of all. This Phoenix team doesn’t have a huge amount of A-League experience but it’s stacked with players who’ve played huge games in the past. Steven Taylor has played enormous Premier League games battling relegations. Stefan Marinovic has played playoff games in the MLS. David Ball has played in playoff finals in England. Even guys like Libby Cacace and Callum McCowatt have played in knockout games at U20 World Cup level. It’s all about flicking the switch when it matters. Finding that extra 10% - which if a pretty young team had been missing that as the shining light on the horizon that is the Finals got close enough to become a distraction then okay you can almost forgive that.
Because results aside the Nix haven’t been playing poorly at all. Some lapses for sure but overall they were the dominant team in at least four if not five of those six games. Had they only scored at more opportune moments then they could well have run away with a few of them. Unfortunately the blow in confidence that comes with playing well and still losing does seem to have been creeping in but that’s why you’ve gotta wipe the slate clean for Finals Footy and start again. And if they don’t, well, Perth’s form hasn’t been much better.
The Enemy
These are Perth Glory’s results since the restart:
Perth Glory 1-0 Central Coast Mariners
Perth Glory 1-2 Wellington Phoenix
Adelaide United 5-3 Perth Glory
Western Sydney Wanderers 1-3 Perth Glory
Perth Glory 0-4 Melbourne Victory
Perth Glory 0-2 Western United
The twelve goals conceded in the last four games is an especially tasty thing to see given our own current predicaments. Perth won’t be a simple task despite their form, Tony Popovic is an excellent manager and will have learned a few things from the last time these two teams faced off where for sixty minutes the Nix seemed to have it under control and then Dangerous Dane Ingham scored and suddenly for the rest of the game it was Wellington barely clinging on. Some of that was down to tiredness which the Phoenix should have overcome now that they’ve gotten back into the rhythm and swing of the season after lockdown – particularly since Uli Davila was still being eased in again at that time. There was also some sloppiness which we don’t wanna see in the Finals... although that experience of knowing they can get away with a backs to the wall finish could bode well when it matters.
The thing with Perth is that they’re not the same team now as they were before the restart. Spanish wizard Diego Castro chose not to return amidst the pandemic and without one of the finest creative players in the league – and a notorious Phoenix killer – they’ve understandably lost a bit of direction. He’s not alone either, defensive imports Gregory Wuthrich and Kim Soo-Beom are also missing while poor old Chris Ikonomidis busted his knee back in February.
Take out four deadset starters and any team is going to be badly hobbled, especially when those absences affect them up and down the pitch. What we’ve seen in their absence is young guys like Jake Brimmer, Nick D’Agostino, Dane Ingham, and Popovic’s two teenage sons Kristian and Gabriel all getting big minutes. Those are decent players, the lot of them, but the Glory just haven’t had the same fluency or control as they did earlier in the season... or in winning the Premiers Plate a year ago. They’ve been leaking goals and losing games. Their two wins were against bottom three teams (and they lost 4-0 to the third of that bottom three). Playoff footy is playoff footy and nothing comes easy but jeez the Nix couldn’t really ask for a more favourable matchup under the circumstances.
(I mean, we could be playing this game at home in Wellington I s’pose, that woulda been more favourable, but you can file that in the ‘under the circumstances’ folder).
The Task At Hand
It’s simple, really. Goals must be scored. The Nix have only scored five since the restart and two of those came from the penalty spot. The last two games in particular the Nix really dominated but came up against decent goalkeeping and some poor finishing and got little to show for it. This is a simplistic stat but here are the shot numbers from the six restart games...
Blocked shots count as shots off target (can’t kick through a fella after all) and they account for a fair few of them, it seems. Which adds up because the Nix haven’t really attacked with the necessary speed often enough in these games. Uli Davila hasn’t yet recaptured his pre-covid form and his ability to pick a pass quicker than most blokes can even see one has thus been missing. Take out that smooth sharpness in the attacking third and you’re giving defenders that extra bit of time to recover and get bodies between ball and goal. Hence blocked shots. The Nix have had time to prepare for this one. Perth like a wingback or two. Better hope we’re coming up with slick ways to get Cacace and Elliot (or Fenton but probably Elliot) in behind the defence. Nobody should be surprised to realise at this point that Libby Cacace is probably the most important attacking player this team has beyond its imports.
Speaking of whom... David Ball, for whatever reason, hasn’t played at the same level since restart either. He’s just been strangely quiet in games, not really noticing him like we did before. Then chuck in that the supporting cast of Sotirio/McCowatt/Piscopo might all be exciting players in their own way but the end product hasn’t really been there. Not a lot of goals and assists from that trio. Nor do we get any of that final product from our midfielders. And let it be known that the best finisher in the squad (by far) Gary Hooper who is responsible for two of the three open-play goals since restart... well he’s out for the rest of the season with the hamstring injury that, ironically, he seemed to pick up while scoring against Brisbane two games ago.
That’s the thing with knockout footy: somebody’s gotta step up and be the hero. Forget the sloppiness of recent weeks and flick that ol’ switch we were talking about before. I mean, there’s been some dumb stuff but also some of the bad luck they’ve had in front of goal... no way can that continue. Goalies having blinders. Goalposts with one coat of paint too much. A missed penalty, even. Think about this from a magical point of view and the Nix have already offered their karmic sacrifices to the Great Spirit and must be due a deflection into the top corner or a goalkeeping howler in their favour.
On that note, here’s a particularly prescient comment we got on the last match report...
“However this game could serve to ensure Nix actually win the league. Based on a version of my “de Lisle theory of The prematch shots versus match conversion percentile”. This normally shows itself when having pre-game shots at the goal. Blasting every shot past the hapless goalie in a Roberto Carlos manner almost guarantees a blank sheet during the game. Conversely, comically missing every easy chance pre-match will help ensure that your striker will nab a hat trick that day. And don’t tell me I’m the only one who has observed this phenomena. So drawing an admittedly long bow here, a shitty run-in to the finals may reap rewards in the playoffs.”
Shout out to Rod de Lisle for that one. 100% that’s a real thing and I’ve seen it at all levels of football (I’ve experienced it myself, shank every shot at training all week then somehow put away the only one I get on the weekend... and also vice versa, more humiliatingly). I’ve seen it with pre-game shootarounds in basketball too. Think about it like the restart games were prematch and the Elimination Final is the real deal and the logic holds up. Surely. But just in case I’m also gonna bury a talisman, burn an effigy or two, and maybe set up a shrine to Saint Paul Ifill for extra psychic protection.
(We don’t really respond to FB comments too often because we think of that more as your guys’ space to express yourselves – and also just personally as soon as I share an article I wanna log off all social media for as long as I can until the next article – but this did get me wondering about the possibility of a Welly Nix Mailbag if we got enough questions/comments on things. Twitter works equally well too... I’d start by responding to anything decent enough in these existing articles first, if it doesn’t lead to anything then so be it but it’s an idea if you folks are keen)
Defensively I’m not too worried. There’s that concerning stat from last write-up about how much better the Nix are with Tim Payne in the backline but Payne has returned to NZ with injury and unlike Super Hooper (have we seen the last of Hooper in yellow and black!?) we have at least had six games to prepare playing without him. Elliot seems to have snatched that role off Fenton. Neither is as defensively sound as you’d want but at least Steven Taylor and Luke DeVere are there to lead the way and we’ve got an excellent shot-stopping goalkeeper too. As well as the best left back in the league... every game from this point onwards could be Libby Cacace’s final one for the Phoenix. Also our midfield’s defensive prowess remains so while this team doesn’t keep a lot of clean sheets they also hardly ever concede more than one or two and that’ll keep us in the game as long as our forwards do their job.
Will they though? That’s the question. Personally I’d like to see Callum McCowatt playing more directly and cutting inside to shoot a few more times a game. I’d never tell Uli Davila not to pull the trigger with that left foot of his either, no matter the distance. Reno Piscopo I just wanna see running at defenders and tying them in knots. Josh Sotirio it’s all about those stretching runs in behind the defence, nice and early. Quick and direct options, don’t give the defence time to settle. And if they do get settled, that’s when we need to put a few passes together and allow the fullbacks to overlap and then square that ball across goal into danger. There are no more second chances from this point on. What happened in these last few games is irrelevant, gotta be ruthless in front of goal and put those chances away. No prisoners. May the spirit of Saint Paul Ifill carry us onwards to glory.
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