The Waine Train is picking up steam. It’s also picking up passengers. Not quite at full capacity yet, there are still plenty of seats still available, don’t have to hang off the handrails getting thrown from side to side yet. But it’s getting more and more full with each station it stops at... especially after a whole heap of new passengers got on last Sunday when Ben Waine was given his first start since July 2020, up against Western Sydney Wanderers.

Every club loves seeing players come through from their academy to the first team because there’s a perception amongst fans that the local dudes really understand things. You get to feel like they represent you in a way that the hired hands, even the favourites amongst them, don’t quite. For the Wellington Phoenix, having academy grads making the grade is also a necessity as they simply can’t expect to be able to consistently attract that standard of Aussie players across the ditch when there are all them other clubs closer to home they could play for instead (and the better ones are out of our pay range) while for most top level kiwi players overseas the A-League is a step down and below the top level it’s a huge step up.

So it becomes about calculated risk-taking in the transfer market and it’s a testament to the Wellington Phoenix and to Ufuk Talay that they’ve had success down each of these avenues. You’ve got the NZ Premiership which has supplied a few lovely additions to the squad in recent years (Payne, Lewis, Hudson-Wihongi), despite the aforementioned hefty leap in standards between the two making that a cautious approach. Same deal for picking up young and unproven Australians (Devlin, Piscopo, Muratovic) or those with asterisks, such as injuries, that warned off other teams (DeVere, Sotirio). Then of course with the right coaching and pathways you can also develop your own players (Rufer, Sutton, Sail). Plenty of ways to have success in the transfer market without spending the big bucks.

That last one is where the Waine Train emerges from around the bend. Ben Waine made his A-League debut off the bench for Mark Rudan in a 4-1 win over the Newcastle Jets in March 2019. David Williams scored a hatty that day before Waine replaced him in the 90th minute. Sarpreet Singh, another shining light of the academy, scored the fourth. Waine was 17 years & 293 days old. He had earlier played in the FFA Cup game that season (17yrs/59dy – making him the club’s youngest ever player), and would later make his first start in the final league game – a 5-0 loss to Perth – as Rudan made copious changes to rest dudes for the finals.

Ufuk Talay then took over and Waine became a constant presence in his matchday squads, only missing four games all season. He’d score off the bench in a 3-2 loss to Melbourne City – aged 18 years & 145 days which also makes him the club’s youngest ever goal scorer – as he was subbed on in each of the Nix’s first six games that season. However he’d only start once, the first game after the restart, and was subbed off at half-time that day in a 3-1 loss to Sydney. Eight times he was an unused sub. Only five of his 15 appearances were for longer than 15 minutes and he’s yet to score that second A-League goal. Waine had played 20 total minutes in the first six games of this season before getting the start against WSW amidst a crisis of unavailabilities in the squad. It was his second 90-minute stint in 21 A-League apps.

Opportunities aren’t always easy to come by for teenaged locals (Waino turns 20 in June), especially for strikers since that’s a position often filled by imports. But there are a few things you’ve gotta know about Ben Waine. One is that good things happen around him. Two is that he scores goals. The 2018-19 Premiership season was his big breakout, when as a 17 year old he started 17 games and scored 8 goals. That led to him playing his way into the 2019 U20 World Cup squad where he was the youngest player selected... scoring a first-half double in the 5-0 opening win over Honduras as that team made it into the knockouts. Waine was then rewarded with a 1+1 contract with the Phoenix (the first year as an academy player, the second as a full pro) and along with his exploits for the A-League side, he managed to appear 5 times for the WeeNix, scoring 7 goals – including a hatty against Tasman and an absolute worldie away to Auckland City...

The fella has a knack of taking his opportunities and usually he does so ahead of schedule. Some young players are just like that, they don’t necessarily look like fully-formed versions of themselves yet but they make things happen and you can’t overthink it. You can’t sit back and be like: yeah, but not sure he’s physically ready for this level. Not if the dude is scoring goals with his eyes closed. Not everything in football needs explaining, sometimes you’ve just gotta ride the wave. Or... the train.

There had been a few grumblings out on the streets about Waine not being used enough as the Phoenix struggled for goals in the early stages of the current season – exacerbated when they added Charles Lokoli-Ngoy to the roster, although it’s not like he came in and leapfrogged Ben Waine all of a sudden. Nah, CLN did come on as a late sub against WSW but The Waine Train was rolling from the opening kickoff ‘til the final whistle. So having established that Ben Waine – who is in a contract year, btw – clearly possesses some kind of intangible x-factor which keeps him scoring goals at every level he’s played at to date, let’s have a look at how he played against Western Sydney. This was the first genuinely extended glance at him we’ve had for a while and there were strengths, and also weaknesses, both on display. Time for the break down.

POSITIONING

When Waine was named in the starting team, the graphic that the team media accounts used showed him at the tippy-top of a 4-2-3-1 shape which would have been a change from the 4-2-2-2 system that they’d been using so far this season. All these systems are versatile and the differences between them can be pretty slim but it’s notable that the advertised lone striker role turned out to be smoke and mirrors as Waine was in fact partnered by Mirza Muratovic up top. Waine on the right, Mura on the left.

The lone striker idea never really added up against the back three of Western Sydney anyway. It kinda had to be two strikers, both to combat the coverage WSW would have in the middle of the park and also to give those strikers that freedom to drift out to the edges of the trio and attack them down the channels, ie the space between defenders. Against back threes that space tends to be between the wide central defenders and the wing-backs and those were exactly the areas that Waine targeted.

Outside of possession: different story. Ufuk Talay had mentioned something about wanting to sit a little deeper against WSW when talking about the goalkeeping change and that was evident whenever WSW tried to play out from the back. Rather than pressuring the defensive line, the strikers dropped off to shield the two deep-lying midfielders (Jordan O'Doherty & Keanu Baccus) instead...

That meant numbers behind the ball and it also meant a focus on counter attacking which obviously suited a bloke like Ben Waine given his pace. Quite often when playing against back threes in the past, Jaushua Sotirio has been elevated to the eleven for that specific reason. He was injured here, Ben Waine therefore stepped into a very similar situation. Towards the end of the game Charles Lokoli-Ngoy was brought on for his debut and he came into Waine’s position, with Waine sliding to the left instead (but in the same role).

A lot of this positional stuff isn’t really reflective of the player though, they’re just doing what they’re told in line with the coach’s game-plan. Waine followed the script smoothly enough. But it’s what you do with that positioning which matters. Here’s his heat map and touch map (attacking the goal to the right)...

Note that he only got one touch in the penalty area. Getting onto a loose ball in the second half and cutting it back towards Clayton Lewis where it was picked off by a defender. Nobody really there in support for him. There was also the disallowed goal but that didn’t count... obviously.

Another impressive positional note: Ben Waine wasn’t involved in either goal but both times he was the first man in to get an arm across the shoulder of the scorer in celebration. The enthusiasm of da yoof.

MOVEMENT

To keep it a hundy, this is the area which Ben Waine most needs to improve upon. When he can get to the level where the runs that he makes are sharp and assertive and fully anticipated by the players around him then he’s gonna be pretty bloody tough to stop. That takes time though. Time and work. Against WSW there were some good moments and some not so good moments. Let us embark upon a few of them now.

Here’s an example of the kind of run he’s gotta be making. Reno Piscopo with some skill down the left and he surges through the line to face up on that defensive line. Waine, however, takes himself out of the play by running down a blind alley towards two CBs. The space here is on the right with the wing-back out of position so if Waine had drifted wide and then sprinted back in on the angle then there you go. This run still could have worked out had Piscopo been able to run into that space himself with Waine committing that defender but he didn’t have the option with the recovering RWB (Tate Russell) in close attention. Russell ended up fouling Piscopo instead...

Here’s another example the kind of run he’s gotta be making. This came about after some lovely orchestration from Ulises Davila with a one-two with Fenton before suddenly upping the tempo and if you watch it back you’ll actually see Davila pointing out where he wants the run from Waine to be. Of course by then it’s too late, Waine is making a reactive move rather than a proactive move and he doesn’t get the jump on the defender (Mark Natta) that he needed and it’s intercepted....

There was a funky little duel going on between Waine and Natta, come to mention it. The mini-fro’ed Natta is actually a few months younger than Ben Waine. Playing on the left side of the back three - his fifth start of the season – he was often tasked with marking Waine as the kiwi forward hung on the outside of that defensive line looking to be able to attack the channels either side of him. And there was no escaping each other down the other end either as Waine found himself marking Natta on corner kicks too.

Now here’s one where Natta isn’t in the picture. He’d already been waxed by Uli Davila so with him gone, Waine had a bit of freedom of movement that he used to drop unmarked into a reaaaally nice area...

Unfortunately for him, Uli tends not to be in a passing mood at that range. Davila shot instead and drew a save out of Daniel Margush. But good work from Waino all the same.

Speaking of Davila not being in a passing mood, this is a decent enough run from Waine but Davila still holds onto the ball. You can see that Waine hasn’t gotten the inside track on his marker yet, while Fenton has already progressed his run too much. The ideal move here is a triangle of Davila to Waine to Fenton in behind but that wasn’t quite on so Davila decided he’d rather straighten up towards the middle. Not every run is gonna be rewarded with a through ball: sometimes you’re only a decoy, sometimes the defence shuts it down, sometimes the pass simply isn’t played. This was a bit of all three...

Nor did the pass get played here in a much better scenario. Waine is maybe a little behind where he needs to be but this is a decisive move, it’s a threatening run, and you’ll note with these last two he’s got his arm pointing forward really screaming for it too. Love that from him...

On this occasion, Clayton Lewis does play the pass and it’s a beauty. Lewis had intercepted a ball deep in midfield, then stepped up past a flat-footed marker and into space. As he carried it forward, Waine had the option of fading right and then angling a run in (white) or drifting towards the defenders and then breaking back wide (yellow). He took the latter and it was the wrong option. While he did still get the jump on both markers it meant that when Lewis’ pass came through he was running parallel to it rather than intersecting it. Meaning that the timing on both ends had to be perfect and it was not. This was 1v1 with the keeper if he got it right...

That thing about the lack of touches in the box comes back into focus when looking at his work on the end of crosses. Of which there weren’t a huge amount, Waine and Muratovic aren’t a duo who you’re really gonna target with the ball in the air (although Waine held his own with a few headers) and the deeper formation meant the fullbacks didn’t get into those crossing areas too often (it was Fenton instead who scored from a header... although from a set piece when the tall timber had marched forward). But there were a couple of those kinds of crosses, with Waine getting lost in the mix as he didn’t really impose himself. Here it’s Fenton with the cross and Waine needs to be in front of his man targeting the near post...

Now it’s Payne with the early ball and to be fair he didn’t really give Waine enough time to get where he needed to be. If BW’s right on the shoulder of his marker then he’s a good chance of getting something on this cross. Instead it just evades him. But Waine often did try to play off the last man when the Nix had the ball in the attacking third, hoping to poach the rebound after an Ulises Davila shot or some such happenstance. Anyway, here’s that screenshot...

Two more for ya. The first is Oli Sail pumping it long out of his hands towards the general vicinity of Waine, the second is Tim Payne doing the same thing except without the hands. Both times it’s less of a designed play and more of just putting the ball into space and trusting Waine to do something cool with it. Backing his mobility. Neither led to anything drastic but Waine held his own, up against Natta each time...

HOLD-UP/LINK PLAY

So the movement needs some more practice. But tell you what his hold-up/link play was sweet. Waine’s a bigger bloke than you’d think, 1.79cm according to google and he’s stronger than he looks as well. In contrast to some of his earlier appearances, against Western Sydney he didn’t back away from any of the physical stuff whatsoever, nor was he overshadowed by it very often – he’s clearly worked on all this since first getting into the A-League side. It helps that he’s getting older, very few 17-year-olds are holding their own against grown-arse A-League defenders anyway. It also probably helped that for the most part he was up against a fella the same age as him. But his strengths lie elsewhere so Waine doesn’t have to be Romelu Lukaku or anything, he merely has to not get steamrolled. Then that allows his sneaky eye for a pass to flourish.

A couple times Waine was involved in specific goal-scoring opportunities. When Reno Piscopo hit the post early on, it was Waine who’d slid the ball across the edge of the area to Piscopo with room to unleash. Davila had won the turnover out on the right edge, Waine had dropped into the pocket to pick up the loose ball and then smartly threaded it between a couple defenders...

Then a few minutes later he worked this gorgeous one-two with Davila which put the Mexican into his favourite area: angling in on his left foot just outside the box. Didn’t lead to a clear shot at goal but it easily could have. Waine’s done well here to hold off his man and sneak it back to Uli in-stride with a deft nudge (the ball in in front of the ref, fwiw)...

There was another quality spell of play on around 68 minutes which was similar to that one. Just before the equaliser for WSW – and in that bright spell of about 10 mins after Cam Devlin had come on (in a second half in which they were otherwise a distant second best... first half was excellent though). Davila chipped into space on the right wing which dragged BW out wide to collect the pass. Waine then turned and assessed his options and saw Louis Fenton making the underlapping run. Quick pass in for Fenton, then reversing behind him to collect the return touch. Similar to that earlier ball to Piscopo, Waine then squared it to Davila who cut back and shot but no dice. That’s a real skill being able to get the ball where it needs to go like that.

It was also pleasing to see he wasn’t only trying to make forward runs. More than a couple times he dropped into the pocket to show an option earlier in the build-up to go with situations like those ones linking up in attacking areas. The raw stats aren’t the kindest, he only had 32 touches in total which reflects the Nix playing deeper and out of possession a lot of the time. It’s also the case when you play on the same side as Ulises Davila who is going to suction up the footy with his gravitational pull. There’s a bit of toe-stepping going on there and Waine has to be the one to back off and let Davila have the ball, naturally. Already mentioned that he only had one touch in the opposition box too. Unable to unleash those poaching tendencies.

Then towards the end of the game he got sloppy as fatigue set in. There was a firm pass in at his feet from Clayton Lewis that completely got away from him with a heavy first touch. Another time he turned his man slickly but turned into traffic and was quickly dispossessed. He also couldn’t get the ball under his spell chasing down a Matt Ridenton chip out wide, the kind of leading run he’d been making all day. Gotta imagine those errors are mostly down to tiredness. Like, this was the dude just after the final whistle blew...

Not the only one either. A heap of players from both teams were gasping and heaving as the handshakes went around. It was that kinda game. Hectic and a bit wild.

THE FINISHING

Can’t finish without discussing this moment. There were zero shots registered by Ben Waine in this game. Zero shots registered... but one shot taken. A shot on the end of a move that sums up a lot of what this article has been talking about as he got himself into the perfect spot to pick up a Cam Devlin ball and then blasted home at the near post with the only sight of goal he’d have all game...

However he was very offside. Not his fault, granted, Devlin held onto the ball too long when he’d had two chances to play that pass earlier. So it goes...

That’s Ben Waine though. He’s a goal-scorer. Good things happen when he’s around. And he’s starting to flex a much more well-rounded game than when he initially started coming through for the first team, particularly with the way he’s muscling up against defenders (at least those within his weight category) and with the way he linked up with the attackers around him. Those are great signs. Those are the things he needs to be able to do to keep logging minutes.

Whether there’s a place for him in the walk-on team when David Ball and Tomer Hemed are both available... probably not. But Ufuk Talay also has a tendency to reward good form when guys take advantage of rare appearances. Tim Payne became the starting right back very quickly, now he could be about to do the same thing at CB. Oli Sail has seemingly done enough that Stefan Marinovic is gonna have to earn his place back. Cam Devlin started last season on the bench and soon enough was an indispensable starter. The next week or two might just be Ben Waine’s big audition.

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