The 2023 Football Season Is Already Underway With OCL Qualifiers And A Blossoming Rivalry
It doesn’t matter that it’s still only March, the Aotearoa football season has begun. While the rest of us are wondering if we can still squeeze a weekend away into the calendar to make up for the wettest summer on record, top flight regional leagues around the country are kicking off this weekend. And that’s not all. The 2023 football term actually started two weeks ago and it began with the same two clubs that ended the last one.
Auckland City against Wellington Olympic. A rivalry that’s fast emerging as the most significant in kiwi domestic football. They played out a thrilling grand final back in December when Auckland City triumphed 3-2 despite playing the second half with ten men, a win that earned ACFC an impeccable fourth trophy of the year. Now they’ve picked up where they left off in the Oceania Champions League qualifiers.
The OCL’s current format sees only one team from each country qualify for the main event. The seven strongest nations put forward their top two clubs and those two play off against each other in two-legged ties for the spot. The rest of the confederation sends their best club into a separate qualifying tournament for the final entry. Then it’s two groups of four into semis and a final. The rest of Oceania had already done their own qualifiers but the two NZ clubs waited a bit longer, probably to line up with the start of the regional seasons and also probably to give Auckland City something of a break after their Club World Cup efforts.
A fitting way to begin a fascinating season. These were the two best clubs in the country last year, which itself was the first year with a full and proper National League. Covid dramas meant that the first season after the rejigging was missing all the Northern clubs (shout out to the South Central Series) but 2022 finally delivered on what was promised. Meaning that everyone’s now seen how this thing works. They’ve seen the standard and what it takes to get there. Now they’ve had a chance to respond. In other words, this is when it gets real.
We’ll see how that goes. The idea behind the club-based format is that there’s now a pathway for (almost) every club in the country to make it to the National League. But the worry of it is that the best couple clubs might just sign everyone else’s best players and further consolidate their own sustained success.
If that’s something you’ve been afraid of then you wouldn’t have slept too well over recent nights having seen the squads for Auckland City and Wellington Olympic in these two qualifiers. Both have stocked up significantly after already being the big dogs. For Auckland City, they’ve added Michael Den Heijer and Reggie Murati from rivals Auckland United. They weren’t able to keep Nikko Boxall around after their Club World Cup tour, he instead went on and joined the Wellington Phoenix. But Dan Morgan is back after his time in South Africa, as is Nathan Lobo who was at college in the USA for the second half of ‘22. And former Chinese pro Tong Zhou has hopped aboard after moving to Aotearoa to support his wife who is studying here. Pretty cool story. They have lost Sam Brotherton though, he’s moved back to the USA.
Those are standard areas for Auckland City but it’s different gravy seeing Wellington Olympic following the same Amateur Galacticos strategy. While they have lost a number of last year’s squad, with Jesse Randall soon to move to Charleston Battery in the USA (second tier), Gianni Bouzoukis on the trial circuit in Finland, and Kailan Gould doing his thing for Preston Lions in the Victorian NPL second tier... safe to say they’ve lost nothing with their replacements.
Joel Stevens is back in the country after a few more years in Sweden. A bloke who has utterly carved up defences at this level in the past. He’s signed with Olympic. They’ve also scooped up Gavin Hoy who previously played for North Wellington, though would be best known for his Hawke’s Bay Utd efforts. As is Birhanu Taye, who has made the same trip. Hoy and Taye have both played winter seasons for Olympic in the past. Young Ole Academy winger Ryan Feutz is back from a stint in Scandinavia and he’s now an Olympian. Oh and just to polish things off they’ve also scooped up a trio of dudes from close rivals Miramar Rangers: Josh Rogerson and Ollie van Rijssel (both also Ole lads like Feutz)... plus the destroyer himself Hamish Watson. They even had the main man Derek Tieku pop down for these games (although he’s since re-signed with Hamilton Wanderers for the full season).
It’s frightening stuff for the rest of the Central League... but probably the best thing for the kiwi game overall. As incredible as the achievement was, we kinda don’t want to see Auckland City winning the Northern League, Chatham Cup, Oceania Champions League, and National League every year. They need a proper competitive rival. Wellington Olympic are in the best position to offer that and they appear to have intentions of rising to that challenge.
There’s already a trophy on offer for when the teams meet: the Mediterranean Cup (on account of the Croatian/Greek heritages of both clubs, you get it?). Now here we are. Wellington Olympic didn’t stock the shelves in order to fend off the rest of the Central League. Nope, this was all about taking down Auckland City.
ACFC and WO met three separate times last year. There was a Chatham Cup semi-final in August which City won quite convincingly by a 3-1 scoreline. The game was much more competitive a few months later when they met in week one of the National League... although again it was the Navy Blues who came out on top. Olympic were excellent in the first half but a controversial disallowed goal went against them. City then scored soon after the break as they went up the gears but Olympic did equaliser before an 80th minute own goal sent them to a 2-1 defeat. After that, of course, it was the grand final in all its glorious shenanigans.
This season there’s the potential for five meetings when you also chuck these two OCL qualifiers onto the bonfire. So how’d those ones go? Well, the first leg ended 1-1 at Martin Luckie Park in Wellington (good to see Olympic back at their proper home after MLP was under renovations during the National League). Joel Stevens scored for Olympic after 37 minutes with a quick-trigger finish across the goalie after a super switch of play from Jack-Henry Sinclair to find him and the Greeks were looking good value at that stage, moving the ball quickly and limiting anything that City could muster back the other way. Stevens almost scored a stunner from just inside halfway early in the second half too.
However Auckland City’s superior match fitness, on the back of their Club World Cup exploits, really came to the forefront in the last half hour as the hosts visibly tired and their attacking threat pretty much dried up. Goalie Scott Basalaj had to make a couple of excellent stops in the latter portions although ACFC did bag a deserved equaliser with ten to play – an Emiliano Tade free kick nodded back across goal by Mike Den Heijer and Christian Gray was there to tap it home from close range. Definitely an early season game from both sides.
That set up a fascinating tie back at Kiwitea Street for which Wellington Olympic made zero changes to their team while Auckland City made several. Main note about Olympic was that after the shine of seeing their new signings on the teamsheet wore off it became clear they were also operating in a new formation. Gone was the back three with the very high wingbacks. Instead closer to a 4-3-3 formation. Scott Basalaj in goal. Back four of Justin Gulley, Ben Mata, Josh Rogerson, Olli van Rijssel (right to left). Tam Dimairo held in midfield while Tor Davenport-Petersen and especially Gavin Hoy pushed further forward. Then you had Jack-Henry Sinclair on one side and Joel Stevens on the other with Hamish Watson through the middle.
Steady as she goes there. Meanwhile ACFC made four changes to their inimitable line-up. To illustrate the point, here are the last three XIs that Albert Riera has tossed out. Club World Cup loss to Al-Ahly then the two OCL quals...
CWC: Tracey | Murati, Mitchell, Boxall, Lobo | Den Heijer, Howieson, Garriga | Manickum, De Vries, Tade
OCL 1: Tracey | Murati, Den Heijer, Gray, Lobo | Garriga, Howieson, Manickum | Zhou, Kilkolly, Gillion
OCL 2: Tracey | Vale, Den Heijer, Mitchell, Lobo | Garriga, Howieson, Manickum | Gillion, De Vries, Lee
But despite bringing back the experience of Vale, Mitchell, and De Vries, as well as last year’s standout youngster Joe Lee (currently with the NZ U23s)... the first half at Kiwitea looked a lot like the first half at Luckie as Olympic played with great energy and were soon rewarded with a slightly dubious penalty on 16’ that Ben Mata slotted away as he always does. Only a few hours after his brother Max had scored for Sligo Rovers in his most recent match – good day for the Mata whanau... or it was at that stage, anyway.
City being City they equalised pretty swiftly through a nice Liam Gillion finish dinking it over the keeper after a superb pass from Cam Howieson dropping in behind the defensive line. But a mere five minutes later Hamish Watson slammed in from outside the area after a quick turnover and Olympic were up 2-1. Fast forward some time and they were still up 2-1 with an hour gone in this match and looking every bit worthy of that lead. In fact they went and made it 3-1 in the 62nd min when Stevens squared early for Watto to slip in his second.
It seemed that we may have had a changing of the guards moment on our hands. Then Emiliano Tade happened.
Yeah, that guy again. For the thousand-and-first time (or whatever we’re up to now). First came a free kick from the left edge which he brilliantly curled into the top far corner. Such a magical finish. The clock read 72:59 when that one rustled the net. Less than two minutes later Tade took a first-time shot that hit Ben Mata on his trailing arm (after a clever one-two with Zhou). Angus Kilkolly ended up scoring from the scramble that ensued but the whistle had already gone for a penalty by then. And because Mata’s arm had denied a goal, he was also red carded. Double indemnity. Tade scored from the spot because of course he did.
With ten men and tiring legs, it all got away from the Greeks in a hurry as Tade nudged a cheeky ball in behind for Angus Kilkolly to score on 84’ and then came another penalty after Lee and Dimairo bumped into each other which allowed Tade to finish off his hat-trick from the spot (87’). Auckland City were 3-1 down with 18 minutes remaining. They ended up winning 5-3 after Emiliano Tade scored a hat-trick off the bench and set up another. Legendary activities from the Kiwi-Argentine icon.
Now, there were some dramas in there. Always seems to be when these two teams are involved. An advantage had been allowed to ensue for Auckland City before the free kick was awarded for Tade’s first goal. Sorta gave them two bites at the cherry. Mata being sent off for a clearly accidental handball (definite penalty, no doubting that) when his arm was behind his body as he tried to turn said arm away from the direction of the shot... that was extremely rough. Letter of the law, okay it’s the decision that had to be made. But it doesn’t quite sit right for a moment of bad luck to be punished so decisively.
Even still, there’s only one team in the country who could’ve done what Auckland City then did to them. And Emiliano Tade somehow continues to thrive in the big moments after all these years. The man is a marvel. ACFC will be back in the Oceania Champions League to defend their title. It’s what they do.
Meanwhile the rest of the National League hopefuls are about to get their own campaigns underway. Northern League, Central League, Southern League. All kicking off across the next few days. It would be cool to do a full preview of all that but that’s way too much work and the information is way too inconsistent from club to club. But here’s an attempt at an overview.
In the Northern League we’ve had North Shore United and Waiheke Island relegated and replaced by Div 1 champions West Coast Rangers (bouncing straight back up after doing down in 2021) and second-placed Manurewa. The presence of ‘Rewa means we even get a South Auckland Derby this year against Manukau United, sweet as. Auckland City are probably winning the whole thing. So it goes. But there should be good competition for the other three spots given that Auckland United, Birkenhead, and Melville have all lost a few key players since last time. Eastern Suburbs in particular really seem to have been stocking up after a disappointing 2022 (for their men’s team, that is: the women were national champs). Roughly half these clubs have changed managers from last year too.
The Central League went down to the very last game between Wellington Olympic and Miramar Rangers but considering how Olympic just took three of Rangers’ better players and given the turnover that MR have had both in the playing crew (hence their poor showing in the National League with a pretty young squad) and also with coach Scotty Hales leaving (now at Western Springs – another serious top four contender up north) that gap seems to have widened plenty. Expect Miramar to still be up in near the top under Kale Herbert but not sure it’ll be title challenging form.
Elsewhere the Wellington Phoenix Reserves should be quite strong with most of their top players from last year still eligible. It’ll be very curious to see how Western Suburbs go given their Canadian influx. Probably gonna be Napier City Rovers and Waterside Karori duking it out for the third qualifying spot again but we’ll see how that goes. At the other end we’ve had Stop Out promoted at the expense of relegated Havelock North Wanderers. Stop Out beat Whanganui Athletic in the playoff to qualify... but in the end Whanganui Athletic were also been sent up after Wellington United withdrew for financial/sustainability reasons.
Then in the Southern League there are only really two teams at the true tip top. Would be cool to see Dunedin City Royals or Nelson Suburbs break up the Christchurch dominance but for now we’ve gotta lean on Christchurch United and Cashmere Technical as the teams to beat. Both have strong youth systems and a number of reliable veterans. They finished tied on points in an incredible last-day goal-difference finish in 2022 whilst being 16 points clear of third place. Maybe that gap will close this year. Maybe it’ll go the other way. Regardless, you can’t blame them for being the best around. It’s up to the rest of the South Island to try and catch up. Same as with Auckland City up north and Wellington Olympic in the centrals. FC Twenty 11 have also been promoted while Mosgiel went down.
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