Football around the world may be taking a bit of a break for the foreseeable future but in our relative isolation the Premiership gets to continue and we had here, for the first time in a month, a full weekend of fixtures to chew upon and digest (don’t forget to wash your hands).
It was to be the final time that the Wellington Phoenix could play at home this season and it was a glorious way to say farewell. A 3-0 win over Melbourne Victory during which the team was excellent throughout.
Conceding these late winners hits harder with the early starts. 5am is a ruthless time to be getting up to see the Fernies lose another close one, but it’s a feeling we’re kinda used to these days.
After the toothless gumming they gave Newcastle last week until Chris Wood was chucked on, there was little doubt that he’d be out there and starting as Tottenham Hotspur came to visit... on a bit of a dud streak themselves in contrast with Burnley’s quality run. Nice time to be playing them.
Here we are with only two Premiership games to talk about. Two very good Premiership games but at the same time it’s a chance to catch your breath before the rollercoaster hits that downward surge.
Progress doesn’t happen on a steady scale. The evidence of deeper improvements aren’t always obvious as they happen. Following on from the Footy Ferns looking mostly pretty good in the shootout win over Belgium they then had to face an Italian side that had made the quarter-finals of the World Cup last year.
It wasn’t even that good of a performance, to be honest. The Wellington Phoenix went to Central Coast knowing that the Mariners were vulnerable on the back of seven – count ‘em, seven – consecutive defeats and they figured they could just sit back and punish the mistakes that CCM made.
People seem to think penalties are a lottery for some reason. It’s a cliche in football but that cliche is wrong. They’re not a lottery at all, they’re an extreme refinement of the ultimate purpose of the sport. Ball. Goal. Person trying to stop ball from going into goal.
Here was a fella ideally placed to take the club into a glorious future where young players are given a chance, where the academy is a major focus, and where those things don’t come at the expense of success on the park, quite the contrary. And if those young players develop enough to gather further hefty transfer fees then all the merrier.
This is where the Kiwi x MLS yarn begins to take some context. We’ve got eight dudes in the MLS this season but having contracts and being influential players are very different things. Noah Billingsley and James Musa didn’t make the matchday squad for Minny’s opener against the Portland Timbers... who themselves had Bill Tuiloma on the injury list.
By a quirk of fate, Waitakere United and Hamilton Wanderers played each other home and away in consecutive weeks. Down in Hamilton it was late drama for Kale Herbert’s boys as Xavier Pratt and George Ott both scored late and the Tron Wands won it 4-3.
This is a tricky wee junction for the Football Ferns that we find ourselves at. By all accounts it seems like they’ve gotten their mojo back from after the travesties of 2018 but that unfortunately didn’t align with hitting their targets at the World Cup last year.
Another day, another dollar for Melbourne City. Several more dollars in fact, as they cruised to a 4-0 win away at Western Sydney Wanderers which has already booked them the minor premiership shield with two rounds to spare.
Something rather strange happened this week. It was deep into injury time down in Nelson, where Auckland City were visiting Tasman United. So deep that there were only seconds remaining…
Following another glorious Wellington Phoenix victory, this time a 2-0 win over instant-rivals Western United which sent Mark Rudan home without so much as even an inspirational message left on a whiteboard, the telly coverage managed to snag Steven Taylor for a bit of a post-game chat.
Happy days, right? But those ain’t pics from last week’s game, nope Ryan Thomas has been at it again for PSV. Starting in that number ten role once more he supplied his second goal for the club a week after scoring his first and helped the team to another important win as they seek to turn their season around.
Folks, it’s Champions League season. Eastern Suburbs as we speak are hanging out in Papua New Guinea for their group stage endeavours, in the process becoming the fourth New Zealand club to compete in this tournament.
A win like the Wellington Phoenix had on Saturday night in Auckland against a top side like Melbourne City, that’s the kind of win which is gonna look immeasurably valuable over the coming weeks. The Nix were not at their best against a team that knew how to ruffle them up.
Doesn’t he just look chuffed? Absolutely stoked? Brimming with primordial glee? Okay perhaps not but that’s our Winston for ya. He’s never been the most emotionally forthcoming, to be fair.
A beautiful way to score your first goal for PSV Eindhoven. Drifting into great areas, linking up with the dudes around you, making that late untracked run into the penalty area and then slipping it past the keeper.