Doesn’t really matter how they did it, the Wellington Phoenix had one task before them as they travelled to face Macarthur FC in the final round of the A-League Men’s regular season and they accomplished it. They knew heading in that if they avoided defeat against the bottom-ranked team in the competition, although admittedly away from home, then they’d extend their season by another week. And that they did. In fact they achieved it with room to spare.

A grinding 1-0 win might not seem like a comfortable margin when all you need is a draw then a one goal lead might as well have been two and we’ve got a whole season’s worth of evidence that this Phoenix team is pretty good when they score two goals: five wins, four draws, and only that one silly defeat to Western United right before the World Cup break. For a team that has scored in all but one game this term that second goal has so often been the hurdle that tripped them up. Luckily, for once, they didn’t actually need one this time.

This was a Whatever It Takes kinda game. Alex Rufer was recalled to the midfield in place of Clayton Lewis. That Rufer/Steven Ugarkovic combination sacrifices a certain amount of flashiness without the passing range and incision of Lewis but it’s the most functional. Steady distribution and reliable positioning. Nothing fancy. Elsewhere Lucas Mauragis came in at left back for an injured Sam Sutton, although LM might well have grabbed that spot back regardless after the last couple weeks. Kosta Barbarouses also returned to the starting team in place of Bozhidar Kraev in the third and final change from the 4-0 loss to Western Sydney Wanderers a week earlier.

The most fascinating thing about this game was the same thing that made it such a dull spectacle. The Phoenix have usually been a ball-dominant team under Ufuk Talay. They want to control things and break teams down by moving side to side and up the wings. Building things up from the back. That’s not always been possible this season due to their sloppy form but they still average a shade under 50% possession over the course of the season whereas Macarthur are the team with the second lowest possession numbers in the comp. And yet, get this: Macarthur had 64% of the ball in this match. Their second-most in a game all season.

That was not because of Macarthur suddenly discovering some long-dormant prowess in the midfield. They’re wooden spooners for a reason. Nope, it was actually much more by design of the Wellington Phoenix. Right from kickoff you could see that they were trying to be direct, seeking to push that ball forward early especially when Oskar Zawada was in motion. This could only have been a coaching directive. Uffie wanted them running at the backline whenever they could... which led directly to their 11th minute goal. Yan Sasse carried forward, slipped a pass through for David Ball, who predictably failed to beat the keeper 1v1 but the rebound landed to Zawada with enough time for a sip of tea before smashing in goal #15 of the campaign.

Fun fact: one more goal and Zawada will crack the club’s all-time top ten ALM goal-scorer list.

That strategy led to other great chances too. Callan Elliot angled infield onto a brilliant reverse pass from Ball. Kosta had a couple of shots. Into the second half Zawada had two golden opportunities including a borderline sitter at the very end but he skewed both and still, believe it or not, has never scored twice in the same game despite having 15 goals in 25 appearances overall.

Granted, the game-plan did change as the game wore on. That overt directness was mostly a first half thing, with the Nix happy to push impatiently forward knowing that:

a) There was lots of space between MAC’s midfield and defence

b) A wee bit of chaos was doing their out-of-touch attack no harm

c) They weren’t very worried about this particular team’s build-up or transition attacks

That last point may not translate so well in the finals but remember this was a game where the coach was willing to abandon their usual identity to get a job done. Transition defence was probably a good reason to recall Alex Rufer. It’s also been a general weakness for this team all season, especially in the wide areas. But Macarthur didn’t have much counter-attacking funk and they sure didn’t have it in them to pass their way through a structured backline either.

An incredible stat that you can absolutely guarantee was part of the Nix’s scouting report when it came to putting together this game-plan: of the eight games in which Macarthur’s have had the most possession this season, seven of them have been defeats. That’s a bit hard to make sense of with words so here’s FbRef to put it in plainer visual terms...

See also that in the four games in which they’ve had the highest possession splits they never even scored a single goal... including this match. (There’s also a sneaky flipside which is that the Welly Nix have not lost this season when they’ve had 43% or less of possession – 4 wins and 3 draws).

So that was how it started... although in the second half there was definitely a spell where the Nix slowed things down and started holding onto the ball more determinedly. That lasted up until a few ticks after the hour-mark when The Tactical Sub happened: Josh Laws on for Yan Sasse. From a 4-2-2-2 shape to a 5-2-3 formation. It’s one we’ve seen a few times from Ufuk Talay, most notably in wins over Newcastle and Sydney in March. Laws comes on as a third central defender and the Nix suddenly drop deeper and look to counter attack albeit with an emphasis on protecting what they’ve got.

Macarthur being Macarthur there were still plenty of counter attacking openings on offer, particularly after Kraev came on with his dribbling ability negating the lack of forward numbers. Phoenix being Phoenix, they managed to waste all those chances to kill the game off. But that was okay because they were composed at the back throughout, with Scott Wootton having his best performance in months. Now that’s what an import defender should be doing. Diving blocks, strong leadership, damn-near perfect distribution, winning all his headers. You couldn’t claim that Oli Sail didn’t have a save to make but you could say that for most of the game all he had to deal with were shots sent straight at him. Macarthur did make it frisky in the latter stages, mind you, but that was all a little too late to make a difference to the top six standings. And the Nix kept them at bay anyway.

The 1-0 win breaks a five-game winless spell during which the Wellington Phoenix had only grabbed one point and were at severe risk of losing their finals spot. As it happens they’d have made it even with a close defeat as, of the three teams still in range, only Western United were able to win and their goal difference sucks (admittedly the Nix played first so if that’d been different, those others might’ve been too). Clearly it’s way more fun to confirm a finals spot with a win and a clean sheet than to stumble backwards into the finals. This was only the fifth clean sheet of the season – four of those being 1-0 wins. It was ugly but it got the job done. To be honest, this team needed a fair bit more ugliness in quite a few others games along the way. Don’t freak about the ugliness.

They’re going to need more of it against Adelaide on Friday night in the elimination final, that’s for sure. But before that one swings around it’s worth pausing to smell the roses because the Wellington Phoenix have made the finals in four of the last five seasons. What’s more is they only missed out that other time by a single point (in a season without regular home games). This after the club had only made the finals in 4/11 seasons previous to this current spell. Now, okay, they did have more finals success in those earlier efforts and if they don’t manage to spring the upset win over Adelaide then the lack of a playoffs win will be the biggest failure of the Ufuk Talay Era. But, regardless, this is rare territory for the Nix. Only Melbourne City have qualified more times in this span...

To put it another way, the Nix have averaged 40.8 points per season over the last five campaigns. Only Melbourne City (48.0), Sydney FC (44.2), and Adelaide Utd (40.8) can top that mark. It’s been an unprecedented level of consistency especially when you consider that roughly half that time was spent battling against pandemic limitations that affected the Phoenix a whole lot more than they affected anyone else. Gotta be proud of all that. Here’s hoping it continues smoothly into the Giancarlo Italiano days.

Getting back to the weekend’s activities, it’s worth applauding the 1-0 win for another reason. As we know, the 2022-23 Welly Nix have not been up to much with protecting leads. They’ve led in 19 of 26 games yet only went on to win nine of those – we’re talking about 25 points dropped from winning positions. Now, obviously it’s unrealistic to expect them to have won all of those games... but a couple more would’ve been sweet. Seven more points and they’d have been planning for a home finals game instead. Not that we should hold that up as some sort of evidence of this team’s underlying quality – it happened far too often to be an unlucky coincidence. Those blown leads are intrinsically part of this team’s identity.

That win over Macarthur did at least show that the Welly Nix have a little bit of dog in them when they need it. That’s good to know. They’ll need plenty more to beat Adelaide because there haven’t really been any other major steps forward since this piece was written a couple weeks back detailing the team’s recent stumbles.

The winless streak is over but they’re still not finishing chances. They’re still short on tactical flexibility, particularly in the attacking areas (even if we saw a dose more than usual with their directness against the Macs). Bozhidar Kraev has not broken out of his drought nor has David Ball... although Bally has at least supplied a couple of assists in recent weeks (via a penalty win and a missed shot). And while they didn’t blow their lead against Macarthur, even going as far as keeping a clean sheet, that was literally against the bottom team in the competition so it remains to be seen whether that’ll translate against a team that put five past them not so long ago.

The Welly Nix have often been a streaky team so the hope is that one gritty, non-aesthetic victory might spill into a timely finals run. Hope can be a cruel thing sometimes though. They’ve been in better positions heading into more favourable finals match-ups in recent years and still been knocked out so you’re forgiven in being pessimistic about their chances this time. But hey at least they made it this far.

Make sure you check back in a day or two because there’s a full Welly Nix vs Adelaide finals preview in the works and guess what? It’s not all doom and gloom. Definitely a few reasons for cautious Wellington Phoenix optimism. Get excited.

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