Following the Wellington Phoenix’s 3-2 win over Adelaide, in which Ben Old scored twice and helped create the other goal, Nix head coach Giancarlo Italiano spoke on how the onus is on the kiwi media to build up the hype around his double goal-scorer. Well, Chiefy, your wish is our command. It just so happens that a Ben Old spotlight piece was already in the works and now here it is.

As we well know, the Phoenix have several outstanding youngsters in their squad. But there are three in particular: Ben Old, Alex Paulsen, and Finn Surman. Throwing it back to the mission statement of the Welly Nix Academy, those are the three guys with immediate potential to draw transfer fees from European clubs. Others have the capacity to get there with a couple more seasons under their belts, but these three are already there. Whether they stay another year or two or three, that’s up to them and how patient they want to be. But you can absolutely guarantee that foreign scouts have their names written down already.

Here’s a stat for you: There are nine players born in 2002 or later who have played at least 1300 minutes this season (as of the date of publishing here) and three of those players are from the Wellington Phoenix. Ben Old actually isn’t one of them, due to all the substitute appearances he made at the start of the season while they were managing his fitness, but he’s fast on his way having started nine of the past 13 matches, firmly establishing himself as a key player in his team’s quest for the Premiership.

[Those nine players, from youngest upwards: Lukas Kelly-Heald (Phoenix), Giuseppe Bovalina (Adelaide), Jake Girdwood-Reich (Sydney), Finn Surman (Phoenix), Mark Natta (Newcastle), Jacob Farrell (Central Coast), Alex Paulsen (Phoenix), Ryan Teague (Victory), Noah Botic (Western)... so the Nix are the only team with more than one and they’re top of the table, righto].

The difference between Ben Old and the other U23 players who are getting similar prominence this season is that he’s an attacking player. Paulsen’s a keeper, Surman a centre-back, Kelly-Heald has mostly played left-back... whereas Old has alternated between attacking midfield and winger/forward roles. Football clubs tend to have that balance the other way around where young forwards are given more room to grow, partly because it’s easier to get subbed on in those positions, partly because the nature of them allows for more risk taking. In contrast, young defenders often to need to bide their time before coaches trust them to that extent. It’s the difference between being allowed to make mistakes or not. Attackers can make mistakes and nothing happens. You just try again next time. Defenders make mistakes and you could concede a goal that has major consequences for the game. Of course, Chiefy and his team don’t do things the normal way so they’ve cultivated the best defence in the competition despite having three U23s in key positions. Four when they switch to a back three and Isaac Hughes comes into the line-up as he’s done on three occasions.

But we’re here to talk about Ben Old specifically. The excitement machine. The dynamic dribbler. The summoner of free kicks. The increasingly potent goal provider. The former golfing prodigy if you don’t mind a reach into the cliche basket (brought to you by the same folks that gave us: Jacob Oram used to be a football goalie, and Russell Crowe was born in New Zealand actually).

The nature of the Phoenix Reserves, being and U20s team and all, means that every National League delivers a new standout player. The Lord of the Minions. Sarpreet Singh was that guy. Sam Sutton was that guy. Ben Waine was that guy. Liberato Cacace progressed into the first team so quickly that he never needed to be that guy. But Ben Old was that guy (tied with Alex Paulsen). This has been a breakthrough season for him but he’s been hovering, he’s been lurking. He might have even reached this level a year ago had injuries not slowed him down - although the sheer number of dudes having career/resurgent seasons under Chiefy suggests otherwise. Let us hear from the bossman himself once again...

Giancarlo Italiano: “I think he’s growing every week. The reason why I used him for ninety [vs Adelaide], I’m trying to build his fitness up. Hes been injured for so long, we’ve had to manage that quite extensively. Our physio Cory Glover’s done an excellent job with him. For me, he’s going to be a vital player in our push to create a really good season. He’s the sort of player who needs a little bit of love but he also needs the space and the set-up around him to bring his best attributes out. That’s running with the ball, taking players on, having good players in front of him to combine.”

The things that Oldie did in that U20s side are the same as what he’s doing now, largely. He has this ability to drop deep and collect the ball, say around halfway, then spin through pressure and sprint forward into attack. That low centre-of-gravity. The close ball control. The speed and dribbling ability. His supreme sense of anticipating contact. This is also why he draws so many fouls, by the way. There are only four players in the ALM who’ve been fouled more often than Old this season and they’ve all played a whole lot more than he has (Jake Hollmann, Uli Davila, Jacob Farrell, and Tolgay Arslan).

Getting to play a lot in the midfield this term has helped him, as it puts him in those situations without having to go searching for them. It also gets him involved much earlier in their transitional attacks – which began as a team-wide trademark but it seems that opponents have adapted to that as the season’s gone on. It’s become harder for the fullbacks to overlap, harder for the wingers to get in behind (not having Oskar Zawada’s hold-up play has also been a major factor in that)... but there is still Ben Old. He’s now the main instigator of those moves, the bearer of the counter-attacking torch.

His midfield minutes (which will probably dry up now that Youstin Salas is in town, but that’s alright because they’ve bridged him into being a much more effective forward) have also helped shield him from the major weakness that was also evident in his reserves days: finishing. That final product. He can look so good up until a point but it ultimately doesn’t count for much if there’s no goal at the end of it. His best National League season was in 2020 when he scored three times in 13 games. He debuted for the first team a few months later (getting seven minutes off the bench in a 3-0 win against Western United), and ahead of the following season he signed a three-year senior contract, a deal which he extended for another three years early in this campaign. He’s been a first team player that whole time. With one game under his belt he was given a single-digit squad number.

This is not the career path of an underdog. This is top prospect stuff. The talent has always been clear... but in order to take that next step he needed to start converting excitement into outcome. This season he’s started to do that. This season he’s chipping in with goals and assists. Important ones too. He’s finishing 1v1s. He’s lashing in volleys like he did for his second against Adelaide.

Ben Old Attacking Stats Per Season

As that pretty blatantly shows, he’s taken a huge leap with those goals and assists. He’s also shooting far more often from within the penalty area, leading to better chances, and is more willing to unleash with his right foot than he has been in the past. Two of his goals this season have come via his right foot (last season’s only goal was a header, believe it or not).

Under Italiano’s leadership there’s been a trend towards taking fewer but better quality shots. In fact, the Nix have taken the fewest shots in the ALM this season... yet have the highest percentage of shots on target. Kosta Barbarouses has benefited massively by that. Ben Old has also benefited massively by that. As that graphic suggests, Old has cut down on the hopeful attempts, displaying a real maturity with his decision-making... also leading to a massive leap in creating for others – look at those expected assists! Champion areas, those.

Last season he only mustered one shot on target from his 17 attempts. Lots of those were blocked (a blocked shot is considered a shot off target), with Old shooting seemingly because he felt he had to or because there was nothing else going on. This season there’s more purpose to what he does. And, like Chiefy stated, he’s being put in situations that bring the best out of him. Three of his four goals have come from transitional attacks. He’s collecting the ball in wider and deeper areas... but he’s not shooting until he’s in the a spot where he might realistically score. He’s discovering the concept of efficiency and it’s been beautiful to see.

It’s also been thrilling to see. Some of us purists might enjoy witnessing Finn Surman winning headers and Alex Rufer making sharp one-touch passes and Alex Paulsen dropping a shoulder to beat the press... but ultimately there’s nothing quite so exciting as a bloke who can dribble past defenders. Those are the guys who shake up the structures of a game through their unpredictability. They’re the ones who put bums on seats.

However, it would be silly to act like Ben Old is somehow the finished product. One aspect about his dribbling is how often he gets tackled. Of the 15 players with the most successful dribbles per ninety minutes this season, only two have worse success rates than Ben Old (47.3%). Granted, one of those is Nestory Irankunda who has signed with Bayern Munich so no need to panic. It might also have something to do with the situations that Old is dribbling from... but yeah he can be prone to losing possession.

He’s also not great at winning it back. For someone as scrappy and tenacious as he is, he doesn’t win as many duels as you’d think he ought to. He’s not bad by any means.... it’s just that this is a guy with all the tools to be an absolute menace on the press and that’s not yet shone through in his game at all. Again though, his defensive stuff is definitely improving. That version of Oldie is on the way, one of these days.

Whether we see that version in yellow and black is a different matter. The other thing that The Chief said about Old is that he’s “such an exciting prospect that you’ll only see how good he is until he leaves and goes overseas”. The same can be said of Alex Paulsen and Finn Surman, to be fair. There’s a bubble around the A-League, especially with homegrown players, which makes it hard to envisage their place in the wider world... until they get there and suddenly the distance doesn’t seem so far. The last few years have seen a surge in younger A-League players finding their way to Europe which has given us a much clearer idea of where the A-League sits globally.

We don’t need to think about that right now, though. Current thoughts should be contained to the very special things that Old and the Wellington Phoenix are doing week to week as they chase their first ever piece of silverware, a feat that Old’s emergence has helped make possible. Embrace it. Savour it. And reflect on the other aspect of all of this: Confidence. Italiano’s note about Old needing “a bit of love” is a clue, because it’s amazing what a dose of belief can lead to. Shred away the doubt and hesitation and that can be the 1% that makes all the difference. That’s proving to be the case with Ben Old and it’s proving to be the case with this entire Wellington Phoenix squad.

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