Reactions From Auckland FC’s Semi-Final Exit vs Melbourne Victory

Auckland FC didn’t carry any baggage or trauma into their second leg semi-final against Melbourne Victory. They were home at Mt Smart Stadium with more than 29,000 fans packed in – their biggest crowd of the season. They’d already won 1-0 in the away leg and were hosting a team they’d not conceded against in three previous meetings. Auckland FC led the A-League pretty much from pillar to post on their way to winning the Premiership in their first attempt. They had an experienced squad with a title-winning coach in Steve Corica. We’d never seen them fail before.

Hence the 2-0 defeat that followed was such a shocker. For the second year in a row, the bloody Melbourne Victory turned up in Aotearoa and lived up to their name to earn a place in the grand final. They did it to the Wellington Phoenix a year ago, winning 2-1 in extra time (despite Oskar Zawada’s famous late equaliser), and now they’ve done it to Auckland FC as well. Poor old Alex Paulsen was between the sticks in both of those instances. Lucky for him, he’s done with the A-League now so he doesn’t have to see those jokers again. He’ll be reporting to AFC Bournemouth preseason in a month or so (with the expectation being that he’ll be sent out on loan, possibly to Hibernian in Scotland).

Auckland seemed to have things under control until a Zinedine Machach shot caught a deflection off the inside of Nando Pijnaker’s leg and swerved its way into the net. Alex Paulsen was sent the wrong way and couldn’t adjust in time. Nor did the wider team adjust very well to their new set of circumstances with that first leg advantage suddenly wiped out. Because five mins later, they were caught slack at the back by some clever Bruno Fornaroli movement and suddenly it was 2-0 to MVC and Auckland were staring at elimination. They did manage to get the ball in the net through Logan Rogerson but the cross was deemed to have gone out of play so it didn’t count. Pijnaker also had a shot cleared off the line near the end. Apparently it just wasn’t meant to be.

The Forces Of Darkness Combine

It doesn’t take much to swing a finals game. They tend to be low-scoring affairs in a sport that already doesn’t offer a lot of scoreboard wiggle room. That’s why coaches often talk about moments when it comes to these occasions. Well, there were several significant moments in the second leg at Mt Smart and those moments not only went against Auckland but they went against them in some very weird ways:

  • A deflected goal that bamboozled the best goalkeeper in the competition which looked to be heading wide until it pitched and spun back inside the post.

  • A defensive lapse that allowed a second goal, in which Dan Hall and Nando Pijnaker’s usually excellent centre-back combination didn’t react to the movement of Bruno Fornaroli and then Francis De Vries got caught playing Forna onside.

  • A goal that would have levelled the tie on aggregate ruled out as the cross was judged to have gone over the byline before curling back in for Logan Rogerson to header in... and the VAR didn’t have enough evidence to interfere either way.

  • You could even argue this began at the end of the first leg when Neyder Moreno had a golden chance to put AFC two goals up only for his shot to hit both posts without crossing the line. Not to mention the hamstring injury that ruled Max Mata out of the series.

Few things are harder to swallow in sports than when your team is good enough to win, produces a performance that was good enough to win, and yet somehow doesn’t win. There’s going to be a victor and there’s going to be a loser in these situations and, even accounting for MVC’s massively improved second leg effort, it would only have taken some slightly better luck for that to have been Auckland. If that deflected Machach goal hits the post and bounces out then it’s a different story. Alas, so it goes.

On The Chase

Auckland FC have scored a lot of late goals this season. An incredible 17 of their 50 overall goals came in the final fifteen minutes of games, it was something that they very quickly established a reputation for (they also scored 10 goals between minutes 35-45+ so the late goals extended to both halves). But, backs-to-the-wall on Saturday night, they weren’t able to find another one when it mattered most.

Here’s the thing about all those late goals though: hardly any of them came from losing situations like this. Seven were to take the lead. Another seven were to extend the lead. One of them was scored to halve a two-goal deficit. Only two were equalisers when they’d have otherwise lost: Logan Rogerson in the 90+8th minute away against Adelaide in October; and Neyder Moreno in the 90+5th minute away against Melbourne City in December.

Despite that reputation, scoring late goals in this particular scenario – where the opponent already has a lead to protect – is not something they’ve had much experience with. In fact, playing from a deficit in general is uncommon to them. This game was only the seventh instance of AFC conceding first. They’re undefeated (16 wins, 4 draws) when they score first, yet they’ve never won when they concede first (3 draws, 4 losses). They only spent 369 minutes behind on the scoreboard all season and that includes this semi-final.

Theirs is a style that is aggressive, proactive, and controlling. AFC don’t keep a high volume of possession, instead seeking to draw their opponents out and then batter them in the challenge and swiftly counter-attack. But that doesn’t work so well when you’re losing and the other team doesn’t need to take any risks. And it’s not like Auckland were a particularly potent goal-scoring team anyway. That’s the situation they found themselves in against Melbourne Victory.

Auckland could still load up on set pieces, and that very nearly worked for them, but the fact is this team simply hadn’t faced this kind of adversity in a must-win game before. If they’d scored first then they probably would have grabbed another couple and turned this into a procession. But instead they conceded first and were so stunned by that goal that they promptly leaked another one and from there they only had thirty minutes in which to accept their new reality and then desperately try and change it. A freaky goal can happen at any stage. It was the poor reaction that allowed Victory to grab a second that killed their season. At least now they know.

A-League Bullies

This is where Arthur Diles and his Victory team deserve a huge amount of praise because if they’d turned up in Auckland and served up another course of what they cooked up in Melbourne then they’d have been sent home in humiliation. They didn’t have a single shot on target in that match. They barely even looked capable of scoring despite keeping 60% of the ball. Seven of their ten shots were blocked and the other three were off target. Only three of those attempts were from inside the penalty area... and even then only just (all three were part of the blocked list). MVC worked the ball into the attacking third well enough but then couldn’t do much with it. Meanwhile, Auckland FC won the majority of the duels, stole possession all over the pitch, and generally just kinda bullied the Victory. That only led to one second-half goal but hearing Daniel Arzani whinge afterwards about the “one-dimensional” nature of AFC showed how rattled the Melbourne team was.

This is nothing new for Auckland FC. It’s the same formula they bring no matter who they play. The Black-and-Blue Knights ranked first in the A-League for tackles won and first for fouls conceded – think how many combative they’ve gotta be for both of those to be the case. They were also second for interceptions and third for possession won in the attacking third. Also note that they’re only eighth-equal (out of 13 teams) for yellow cards despite all of those fouls. Bookings tend to come for late fouls and dirty fouls and those aren’t the fouls that Auckland FC are committing. Steve Corica demands his attackers track back and do their defensive duties. There’s an expectation that nobody will hesitate to jump into a challenge. They play hard and they compete. It’s a very physical style of footy.

And to the immense credit of Melbourne Victory, they matched that physicality in the second leg. It was a formation switch that cause some wobbles for the hosts in the first ten minutes but after that it was all about the Victory’s close-combat efforts. They won as many headers as Auckland did. They fought for loose balls. They closed the gap in tackles. Some of the following stats are a consequence of the state of the match (like Auckland going hundies on attack in the last half hour as they chased goals) but these numbers clearly speak to how the Victory adapted their approach and limited Auckland’s biggest advantage as much as possible...

 Leg 1   Leg 2 
 AFCMVCDIFF AFCMVCDIFF
Possession40%60%-0.2 55%45%0.1
Shots15105 12111
Shots on Target202 321
Corner Kicks59-4 734
Fouls Committed810-2 11110
Yellow Cards110 330
Offsides514 03-3
Touches in Oppo Box27234 311714
Final Third Entries57112-55 1229329
Crosses19172 241311
Dispossessed818-10 1819-1
Tackles291910 31265
Interceptions17710 541
Recoveries49409 51510
Clearances32293 2553-28

The Absence Of Max Mata

Prior to the second leg, Guillermo May had a chat with the A-Leagues website in which he mentioned something that coach Steve Corica did which he felt really unlocked his own performances...

“I mean, Steve made really good decisions in the whole season that led us to be the Premiers but yes, I think he identified really well my characteristics and he dropped me off a little bit. He put me another player there so we have more presence in the opposition box. Someone who also makes more forward runs maybe and I can be more in touch with the ball. It was a really, really good decision.”

That other player was, of course, Max Mata. A tall, strong, typical number nine who is really good in the air and holds the ball up well. The finishing can be a little erratic at times but he proved his goal scoring bonafides while playing for Sligo Rovers in Ireland. The thing with May, as he confirms in that interview (though you can figure it out simply by watching him play) is that he doesn’t see himself as a striker. He thinks of himself as an attacking midfielder so to have someone else leading the line really freed him up to play his most natural game. Mata also perfectly fitted Auckland FC’s physical and cross-heavy approach by giving them a target and another aerial presence.

Due to recurring injury niggles, Max Mata only played about a third of the season so he’s not the bloke that most people would think of if you asked them who the team’s most influential player was. But there’s nobody else in the squad, not a soul, whose on/off numbers are as drastically positive as this...

AFC with Max Mata on the pitch:

800 MIN | 22 G | 8 GA | +14 GD | 2.48 G/90 | 0.90 GA/90 | +1.58 GD/90

AFC without Max Mata on the pitch:

1630 MIN | 27 G | 21 GA | +6 GD | 1.49 G/90 | 1.16 GA/90 | +0.33 GD/90

That’s a whole extra goal scored per ninety minutes with Mata involved. They didn’t really miss him in the away leg because that was a game where Jesse Randall’s transitional pace came in quite handy. But they desperately missed him in the second leg when they were stuck trying to break down a packed Victory defence. One more dude who could challenge those corner kick deliveries, who could distract the attentions of the MVC central defenders. A powerful presence who could cause some chaos. Not to mention that, for whatever reason, they’ve also been a better defensive team with him on field (probably because they were playing safely with leads more often). Oh what could have been.

Motivation

The saying goes that you have to lose one before you can win one and now Auckland FC have lost one. That’ll deliver plenty of motivation for those who stick around... and that will be most of them, with only a handful of fellas expected to depart.

The club have already announced that Neyder Moreno will not be re-signed. Most of their dudes were signed on two-year contracts or with second-year options but Moreno was different because of the uncertainty around his never having played outside of Colombia before. He probably didn’t love settling into a super sub situation over the last few months but it sounds like this departure has more to do with homesickness than anything else. Fair enough. It also gives AFC some flexibility with a free import spot that they may choose to use on a Moreno replacement or they may decide that an import number nine who stay a little more available than Max Mata was able to is more of a priority.

That might also depend on what Max Mata does. He’s only on loan from Shrewsbury Town, who just got relegated to England’s League Two, with one more year on his parent contract. Auckland could probably wrangle another loan deal supposing Shrewsbury Town don’t decide to give him another go. Right now it’s too soon to say. But they definitely won’t be bringing back Alex Paulsen as he moves on to brighter pastures. Michael Woud has been promised the number one jersey after sitting on the bench in every single game this season without ever playing. Scott Morris, formerly of Christchurch United and the NZ U23s and more recently a fringe lad at Stoke City, has reportedly been scooped up to serve as Woud’s back-up.

Logan Rogerson supposedly agreed verbal terms on a new deal awhile back though nothing has been announced yet. Other than that, it’s only scholar Luis Toomey whose situation is undecided. Toomey turned 23 in January so he’s now too old for scholarship status. It’s also possible that one or two contracted players might get offers from overseas given how successful this season was. Additionally, Scott Galloway might want to gap it after only making four substitute appearances all term. But the overwhelming bulk of the squad, including 4/5 imports, should be back in 2025-26 as Auckland FC embark upon their revenge tour.

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Written by Nick Robinson On Tagged ,