It feels like just yesterday that we were meeting Mark Rudan for the first time. An unproven but driven personality with a strong reputation within the Aussie game coming across the ditch for his first gig at managing an A-League side.
Honduras versus New Zealand, first game of the group stage for both, 4am in Aotearoa for us hardy jokers. Could they step it up when it really mattered? Mate, could they ever.
If the Ferns hit rock bottom a year ago amidst the disastrous reign of a coach who shall not be named beneath the disastrous reign of a chief executive officer who shall not be named… then it’s also fair to say that they’ve made quick and significant progress under Tom Sermanni ever since.
There’s a men’s U20 World Cup starting in a few days and you should probably be excited about it. With quite possibly the strongest pool of age-group players New Zealand has ever had for one of these things, even Des Buckingham’s squad announcement felt like a Moment and based on their preparation for this thing this set of lads could genuinely be the real deal.
The Football Ferns played on Friday afternoon. The North Carolina Courage played the Utah Royals on Monday afternoon. Both in America, mind, but too short a recovery period for the two kiwis involved in both games? Not at all.
Although the news came as no surprise, it was still a bit of a downbuzz. Tyler Boyd has officially changed his allegiance through FIFA to the United States, which is a card they only let you play once as a senior international… thus his chances of ever playing for the All Whites again are officially 0.00%.
A 5-0 defeat is not exactly the result you want to see as you ramp up your preparation for the World Cup but that’s what the Football Ferns were served up against the USA in St Louis. Five goals and that puts a sudden halt to some of that recent momentum.
The final day of the Premier League season wasn’t quite as dramatic as we’d hoped. There were no late goals that mattered, the two teams scrapping it out at the top both won comfortably enough – although Man City copped a scare in the first half – and it was all kinda predictable in the end.
Roy Krishna did something rather impressive last night. Or maybe a better way to put that is that Roy Krishna did something rather impressive for the entirety of the A-League season and last night was rewarded for it.
Guess who was at it again? Seventeenth minute of the game, Istanbul Basaksehir vs Ankaragücü, and Tyler Boyd cuts inside with a few stepovers, a few shimmies of the shoulder, and then smack right into the bottom corner. That’s his fifth goal to go with his four assists this season and he only joined the club in January. What a lovely goal it was too.
This season changed suddenly when word broke that Mark Rudan’s long expected departure was the real deal. The Nix had just lost a mud one 3-1 away to Adelaide and were about to lose an even more mud one 2-1 away to Brisbane Roar.
Wembley Stadium. The FA Cup Final. It’s all a bit of a dream for a young footy player growing up in Aotearoa, male or female, but Ria Percival made it history as she became the first New Zealander to play on that fabled stage in that fabled cup.
Talay hadn’t been the only person publically linked to the job and given the Nix’s track record you’d be forgiven for thinking it might be a while before next season’s priorities got dealt with. But lo and behold, just after 9am on Saturday morning the Welly Nix threw it all out there: Ufuk Talay was confirmed as the head coach for the 2019-20 season.
The Wellington Phoenix started brilliantly against the Melbourne Victory in their elimination playoff. Right from the start they looked sharp and energised, as Roy Krishna found and pocket of space and lashed one goalwards off his left foot for Lawrence Thomas to save.
There’s definitely a defensive feel to this squad, with a fair few fringe forwards left out of the picture. More than that it’s an extremely experienced squad. The only players with fewer than ten caps are two reserve keepers and a couple defensive alternatives. 14 of the 23 players have at least 50 caps and there are six centurions with a 99-capper in there too.
Here we are then. Friday night at 9.50pm at AAMI Park in Melbourne. It’s the Melbourne Victory against the Wellington Phoenix with the winner advancing to play either Perth or Sydney in the semi-finals and the losers can finally get back to work on that long-ignored novel they’ve been writing because their season will be over as swiftly as a Valyrian steel dagger to the gut.
Woah matey, who saw that one coming? For eight consecutive years and eleven times out of the last twelve the OFC Champions League has been won by a club from Aotearoa, the one exception being Hekari United’s triumph in 2010 and even that was still against Waitakere United in the final.
Bill Tuiloma has constantly planted one foot in front of the other and made strides ever since joining the Timbers. First it was establishing himself with the reserves at USL level. Then it was working in as a defensive option on the bench for the MLS team. Then it was a couple of impressive starting efforts in the playoffs last season when injury/suspension struck the squad.
But let’s be honest, if Mark Rudan was prioritising this game in any way then he wouldn’t have made six changes to a winning team. That alone was a dead giveaway for his priorities here. Meanwhile Perth have a bye next week because of being minor prems and all that plus they rested their dudes last week so they didn’t wanna go three weeks without a decent hit out.
A minor tweak for the usual number tahi Timon Wellenreuther and Michael Woud, fresh from being named in the Junior All Whites for the U20 World Cup in a few weeks, was up for his second Eredivisie start.