Team Welly Wins the Premiership and Footy Lives Again in NZ!
Last night I witnessed an incredible game of football. It didn’t take place in the gladiatorial confines of the Nou Camp or Bernabeu, nor the tribal haunts of Anfield or Old Trafford either. While this fantastic spectacle was taking place there were tumbleweeds drifting across the paths outside Wembley. The Maracana, Stade de France, Olympiastadion… all empty. Nah bro, this game took place in the atmospheric cemetery that is North Harbour Stadium (or whatever corporate slang it goes by these days).
Having the ASB Premiership on telly this season has been a major boost for local football. Chances are the rewards will be a while in coming, ratings will have been awful and the standard of play wasn’t always the best. But hopefully the powers that be can look past the bottom line (which so many are unflinchingly dedicated to) and realise what a thing this is. The more of this football that’s exposed to the nation the better it will get. That goes for the players and it goes for the broadcasters too. And while the 2015-16 ASB Premiership season may have showcased a few too many clumsy battlers, there are folks out there who are devoted to aiming for a better product out there on the pitch. Specifically the two teams that competed in the Grand Final: Auckland City and Team Wellington.
But this still wasn’t supposed to be a contest. Sure, a tight first half can be expected in a final but Auckland City are the standard bearers in this competition. 28 games unbeaten, a streak that ran through the entire season, and two-time defending champions. Not to mention their extra-curricular success in the O-League and World Club Cup. There’s Auckland City and then there’s everyone else.
So, yeah, it was a shock when Team Wellington took the lead after half time with a belter from Tom Jackson, seemingly out of nothing. Just a sharp, opportunistic dig and into the back of the net. Suddenly the champs were on the canvas and they needed to respond. Seven minutes later they did. Emiliano Tade pulled off a glorious little back-heeled volley to play in Takuya Iwata. His cross was blocked but Team Welly made a shambles of clearing it… and then the whistle blew. Penalty? Oh, for real, a penalty. Right… but what for?
Apparently it was a handball. I’ll put it this way, it’ll take a lot more than a few diplomatic replays to convince me that there was any reason that deserved a spotty. It’s been smashed at Chris Bale by teammate Ben Harris from roughly a metre away. He was facing the other direction and trying to duck out of the way. To me, that’s not an unnatural position, he didn’t inhibit an attacking opportunity (hell, it was a clearance that he blocked – he was preserving an attacking opportunity!). Come on, matey. Joel Moreira made no mistake from the spot. 1-1.
Now, often when the favourite fights back from their initial set back, they roll on to victory. Welly could have crumbled but they kept right on at it, defending as well as they had all game. Auckland City may not have been at their free-flowing best but even on off days they’ve still shown the capacity to tear teams apart.
And yet in the 81st minute it seemed that they’d still get their prize after all. In came a lovely deep cross from Tade’s free kick and there rose Daewook Kim to nod the ball into the bottom corner. There was fury from Bale towards his goalkeeper for staying put but the marking was non-existent. A defensive mishap had let the defending champs in for the lead and with less than ten minutes to go it felt like a third consecutive title would be on display down Kiwitea Street.
Ho-ho-hold your horses there buddy because there was yet another dramatic swing about to happen. More dramatic than Sam Burfoot’s twitter account (twitter search it if you must know). Ben Harris got onto the ball down the line and cut inside of Iwata. Brilliant turn, putting him goal-side and as Iwata tried to recover he could only send Harris tumbling. Penalty. This one much clearer than the last. Cole Peverley buried the sucker and with no further twists we were heading for extra time.
There’s not much that’ll bust your spirits like being five minutes away from glory and losing that lead. Same goes for the momentum you carry into extras when you’ve just reeled yourself back into the game having been so near to the ledge. Team Wellington were not the fancied team. They’re a well supported team with a lot of talent and deserving of their place in this final but, come on, Auckland City were in the World Club Cup semis a year and a half ago. But it was the underdogs that rallied in Albany. It was the underdogs that took the lead less than four minutes into tiebreak time on the back of a spilled shot by City GK Diego Rivas (probably a foul but keepers are so ridiculously coddled by refs that I’m not about to complain, contact was minimal). It was then the underdogs that doubled that lead and from 4-2 up the underdogs that closed it out with discipline.
Team Wellington, 2016 ASB Premiership Champions. Football, eh? Bloody hell.
It’s a devastating way to finally lose for the City Slickers. Gutting stuff. But as far as the competition goes it’s important to show that the ASBP isn’t working from a pre-written script each year. Auckland City are the pinnacle but they can be beaten, and shout out to Team Wellington for doing it in a positive way too, rather than trying to sit back and frustrate. That’s the kind of thing that screams inadequacy; you only play that way because you don’t back yourself to match them with the ball at your feet. Now, if you happen to be Jose Mourinho at Chelsea (or whoever) then there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s a trap that too many NZ footballers and teams fall into and if we wanna see kiwi footy progress (if you don’t then bugger off) then it’s pretty important to steer clear of that. You don’t develop as a footballer by sitting in and defending. A healthy amount of pragmatism is always helpful but technique and player IQ is where it’s at as far as producing players who can thrive overseas. Premier Leaguers like Ryan Nelsen, Winston Reid and Simon Elliott (for his brief tenure) were all basically developed overseas and that’s not a coincidence. However more recently we’ve seen blokes like Marco Rojas and Chris Wood have success coming through the local scene. Getting the top level of the game in this country on TV was huge. Getting people to know and be interested in that is the next step and that’s something that’ll take more than one season to happen - although it’s a process that’s well underway. That was one brilliant final, after all.
It all now falls on the shoulders of Sky Sports to keep this going. Get it back for next season and keep up the good work that we’ve seen between them and NZ Football (wouldja believe it!?). The promo game has been modest but efficient, with youtube highlights vids and a solid social media presence. And judging by the fact that they created NZ Football Weekly to couple with this coverage as well as promoting two new and promising presenters in Sam Harris and Narelle Sindos (who each got considerably better as the season progressed – Harris was a tough watch when it was his solo show, as will happen to most rookie broadcasters, but their chemistry was really coming through by the end), yeah so judging by that you’d imagine that Sky have longer term ambitions in place. Who would have thought after such a brutal year for football in this country that it’d be the ASB Premiership to provide hope for the future? More of this, please.