Hypothesising What A Wellington Phoenix Women’s Squad Might Look Like

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There would have already been a SheNix team last season if it weren’t for some poorly timed shenanigans. The Wellington Phoenix were all set to make an announcement about it. The deputy prime minister was gonna be there. A handful of inaugural signings too. Everything was good to go... and then two days beforehand the FFA dropped a bombshell that scuppered the whole thing. They didn’t wanna change the eligibility rules to allow New Zealanders to be classed as locals (which is the case with the Welly Nix men’s team) thus meaning that only five kiwis could be a part of the squad and, like, what’s the point of that? So the plan got shelved for another year.

The men’s side used 24 players last season, exactly half of them were New Zealanders. Six of them have never played professionally for another team. This is the club that brought through Liberato Cacace and Sarpreet Singh and let them loose upon the wide world - only the Ole Academy has a player development record in recent years that rivals what the Wellington Phoenix have been doing (slight edge to Ole at this point in time but they’re both daylight clear of any other local pathway). They’ve been a super competitive team these last couple years while also doing wondrous things as a bridge to the pros for kiwi male footballers. Doing the Lord’s work.

And that happens to be exactly what the ladies need. The Future Ferns Development Programme has tried to simulate a professional environment for the top domestically based players but it ain’t the same thing. Having a Nix team however, keeping at least a dozen (maybe two dozen) NZers gainfully employed as footballers and thus expanding the professional player pool... that’d be a game-changer.

Hence it was bloody disappointing for the FFA to pull the rug out so late, to say the least. The FIFA World Cup dual hosting rights seemed to make it the perfect time to get a kiwi team in the W-League but instead the FFA claimed that would take opportunities away from Aussie players. Even though it was an expansion team. They weren’t replacing anyone. In fact they’d be adding games to the fixture list, they’d be bringing more money into the comp (hopefully), and if they signed literally just one Australian player then that’d be one Australian player who wasn’t otherwise gonna be playing that season.

But you know what? I didn’t buy that excuse at the time and I don’t buy it now. The announcement was gonna be in November about six weeks before the season was due to start. My theory: the eligibility thing was a means to an end. It was getting very late notice to get the team up and running and thus the FFA wanted to kick the can down the road. Eligibility was an easy excuse to get that done.

Sure enough, the signs now seem so much better with the folks that matter talking about potentially adding not one but two W-League teams to the mix for next season and given that there are four A-League teams without a W-League side, which is where they want expansion to come from at this point, and given that the Central Coast Mariners and Macarthur are on record as saying they’re not quite ready at this point... the Wellington Phoenix and Western United both seem poised to reap some benefits. Optimism is high and reports out of Oz are backing up that inkling.

Which gets ya thinking... what would that team look like? Who’d be playing? How competitive would they be? Hmm. Let’s explore that, shall we?

So the announcement that was gonna happen last year included Tom Sermanni as coach. His Football Ferns contract coming to an end after the Olympics complicates that a little, though given that the team will have to be based in Wollongong (at least for most of their home games) to start with and that Sermanni does live in Aussie that could still be a possibility. Dunno. Maybe not. Might just leave that one to run out for a goal kick for now, let the coaching scenario solve itself down the line and just focus on the playing squad instead.

The Wollongong thing is down to money and convenience. It’s rather expensive to fly back and forth and at least initially the team is not gonna have a lot of cash as it gets itself established. And it’s Wollongong specifically because that’s where the club has existing relationships after the men’s team was based there last term. It seems the women’s team will be largely funded by High Performance Sport NZ, a bit of NZ Football, and potentially even the NZ government considering how this team would fit into preparation for the 2023 World Cup. And NZ Football’s involvement would be down to the team providing opportunities for kiwi players, fitting into that gap in the system between the local scene and the overseas professional scene. As thus it’ll probably be a team that skews younger too. At least that’s what’s been reported to date – it’s all moving goal-posts at this point.

The youth thing wouldn’t be rare. The 2020-21 W-League season had an average player age of 22 years old. It’s maybe not a coincidence that the champions Melbourne Victory (featuring two New Zealanders: Annalie Longo & Claudia Bunge) were the oldest team at 25.2yo on average but this is a league that is pretty welcoming to younger players, nothing out of the ordinary there. A large number of Matildas internationals didn’t play last time after signing with English/European clubs which skewed things even younger as new players stepped up to replace them. Around half the league is in that 18-24 age range.

With all that in mind now, which kiwi players would come into SheNix consideration? Here are a few possibilities...

CURRENT FERNS W/O PRO DEALS

One thing to keep in mind here is that the Welly Nix Women are supposed to be expanding the player pool. We want this to be a step up on the ladder, not a step down. Meaning that it’d be counter-productive to be dragging players already in pro situations back down to W-League which isn’t even a year-long competition at this point. Leave Ria Percival and Meikayla Moore where they are. A few of the OG’s might wanna pop back to Aotearoa/Australia for some yellow and black kits but only if the situation is right. Gotta have some imagination here, you know?

There are nine players in the Olympic squad who aren’t currently under contract (excluding current W-League players, they’re up next):

Erin Nayler, Anna Green, Hannah Wilkinson, Anna Leat, Daisy Cleverley, Emma Rolston, Mickey Robertson, Marisa van der Meer & Gabi Rennie

A couple of them are at university in the States. A couple of them are merely in between deals. Erin Nayler can surely get another gig in Europe at a higher level, while Hannah Wilkinson is in the same boat (though the procession of short term deals she’s been churning through might mean she wants a little more stability). You’d figure at least a few of this lot would be getting recruited though... starting with Anna Green who has played W-League before. Green moved back to Aotearoa after a few seasons in Europe and she even lives in Wellington. Not only is she one of the absolute first names who should be on the list but she might even be captain.

Then there’s Michaela Robertson who literally trains with the Phoenix already. She’s been working with their boy’s academy since at least last year and along with Anna Green was an inaugural member of the fresh women’s academy. Chuck in Emma Rolston too who played a year with Capital in the Women’s Prem two seasons back and is one back in the national team mix now after some injury troubles. And Marisa van der Meer, like Robertson, has been involved in two straight Ferns squads (both are still uncapped) so get MVDM in there too. Four players on the books already. That’s a start.

CURRENT AOTEAROA W-LEAGUE CONTINGENT

There were seven New Zealanders who played in the last W-League, a huge boost on the one or two that’d been there in the previous four seasons... and that was without Rebekah Stott being involved. By the sounds of it, at least a couple of them were initially hoping to play for the Phoenix only for that dream to collapse. A few others were already locked in with Aussie clubs and in fairness we still want to see a splattering of kiwis elsewhere in the W-League to spread the wealth around. Here are the seven:

Liv Chance (Brisbane Roar), Paige Satchell (Canberra Utd), Liz Anton, Lily Alfeld & Malia Steinmetz (Perth Glory), Claudia Bunge & Annalie Longo (Melbourne Victory)

Okay so when Rebekah Stott’s back to full health – all good vibes to Stotty who with 87 W-League appearances and four championships is the NZ trail blazer of this competition – you’d imagine she goes back to Melbourne City. It’s the city where she lives and it’s the club where she’d played five straight seasons before she got ill. It’s only right. Then there’s Liv Chance who has said she intends to head back to England after the Olympics. Then just so as not to be greedy, let’s allow Claudia Bunge and Annalie Longo to be a part of the Melbourne Victory title defence.

But the other four... scoop ‘em up, let’s go. (Actually, maybe leave Lily Alfeld since we’ve got a few goalies available and it’s better she continues to start rather than sit on the bench)

LOANEES FROM USA/SCANDINAVIA

The sneaky thing about the W-League is that the timing and the short nature of the season allows players to pop up in their off-season from certain other leagues. Specifically the NWSL in America and a couple of the Scandinavian nations. Plenty of Australians have used that outlet, Sam Kerr for example always returning to score a heap of goals for Perth after her NWSL campaigns... until she moved to Chelsea. These are the players who that avenue would currently be open too:

Abby Erceg, Ali Riley, Rosie White, Katie Bowen, Vic Esson & CJ Bott

Now, it’s a bit much to ask Erceg or Riley to give up their offseasons... but Rosie White’s not been playing much for OL Reign (even before she got ill) so she could be a marquee addition. The others could go either way... CJ Bott is from Wellington yet playing for a Champions League team probably cuts out her window of availability. But if the SheNix can get one or two of this lot then they’re in a good place.

FFDP/WOMEN’S PREM

After which yes of course we’ve gotta raid the domestic talent and thankfully there’s a heap of talent to go around. The Women’s Premiership had a number of standouts and when it comes to picking out a squad’s worth of them... luckily that task has already been undertaken. The FFDP thing is specifically designed to simulate a pro environment so those players are easy candidates for Welly Nix contracts. Here’s the 2021 crop...

Alisha Perry, Aniela Jensen, Anna Leat, Arabella Maynard, Ava Pritchard, Charlotte Wilford-Carroll, Ella Russ, Emma Rolston, Georgia Candy, Grace Wisnewski, Jana Niedermayr, Kate Duncan, Kelli Brown, Mackenzie Barry, Maisy Dewell, Manaia Elliott, Marisa Van Der Meer, Nicole Stratford, Rene Wasi, Saskia Vosper

A couple of them we’ve already mentioned. A number of them were part of the U17s group that finished third at the World Cup a few years back. A few of them are fully capped internationals. Plenty of them are good enough to crack into the professional stuff... as are a few others from outside that group – which I s’pose because of the logistics of it never quite seems to represent the fact that the dominant National League team is the Canterbury Pride. But Wellington is a lot closer to Christchurch than Auckland, where the FFDP is based, so that shouldn’t be a problem. Probs worth a geeze at the Premmy Files Team of the Season while we’re on this topic too.

THE MOCK SQUAD

Giving us something along the lines of this...

  • GK – Anna Leat | Georgia Candy

  • RB – Marisa van der Meer | Nicole Stratford

  • CB – Liz Anton | Mikaela Hunt

  • CB – Mackenzie Barry | Rebecca Lake

  • LB – Anna Green | Saskia Vosper

  • CM – Malia Steinmetz | Kate Duncan

  • CM – Charlotte Wilford-Carroll | Macey Fraser

  • CM – Grace Wisnewski | Aniela Jensen

  • FW – Emma Rolston | Arabella Maynard

  • FW – Rosie White | Kelli Brown

  • FW – Paige Satchell | Mickey Robertson

Maybe chuck in a couple Aussies/overseas players to fill things out and keep it funky. Abby Erceg and Ali Riley will have a few NWSL connections to cash in on, there we go.

Now, this ain’t a prediction. It’s not a guarantee of any sorts. This article was written in a short amount of time with no behind-the-scenes info whatsover – because of the age group we’re largely working with here there’ll be players who prefer to go off to USA uni or whatever, or other opportunities might open up overseas, or the coach could have different ideas, blah blah blah. What this article is, is an attempt to set a baseline as we get thinking about what a Welly Nix women’s side might look like. Something tangible not abstract. Because this thing is probably happening and it’s about time we all started getting excited about it.

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Written by Nick Robinson On Tagged