After two straight seasons with finals appearances, and two straight seasons with disappointing exits from said finals appearances, the target was pretty clear for the Wellington Phoenix this time around: make the finals again and actually win a game.
It’s still an undefeated start to the season for Ali Riley and the Orlando Pride but only just after a tricky game away against Washington Spirit. It was the home side who started much sharper, hitting the crossbar early on…
Coming into the new season, Chris Wood set himself a target of 20 goals. He did not achieve it. In fact for two-thirds of the term it didn’t even look like he was gonna get close.
If the Phoenix miss out of the finals, that missed penalty by Ulises Davila is going to echo painfully in many minds... but we all know that the real problem was their form in the early portions of the season. It just took them too long to settle into things.
Many moons ago, digging deep into the past to the year 2012, West Ham found their path back into the Premier League thanks to a 2-1 playoff final win over Blackpool. He’s currently on loan at Brentford and oh would you look at that Brentford just won promotion to the Premier League through the playoff final.
Last week the Zebras were confirmed as relegated with two games to spare, having not won a single league game all season. Not quite how they were hoping it’d go down... but they still had those two games to get through and Hannah Wilkinson wasn’t letting that moment slip.
The Wellington Phoenix have four games left in their season, three of them to be played within an eight-day stretch starting on Saturday arvo, and they probably need to win at least three (if not all) of them to crack that pesky top six.
Derby Day football, the threat of relegation looming large, second to last game of the season, a kiwi midfielder with a point to prove after a difficult few months... the ingredients were all there for a Sarpreet Singh special
Right now the Wellington Phoenix are slightly on the wrong side of probability in trying to at least match what they achieved the last two seasons and make the A-League finals. Whether they get there or not, that’s too hard to predict right now.
This was not a good week for the Timbers but it was an alright week for Bill Tuiloma. In the midweek they travelled to Mexico for the second leg of their CONCACAF Champions League quarter-final (after a 1-1 home leg draw) where they fell behind on twenty mins…
Oli Sail did not play a single minute last season. He’d played four times in each of the previous two seasons, every time as a backup/alternate, but if he was planning on taking his career to the next level in Ufuk Talay’s first campaign in charge then that didn’t go so well.
Ali Riley’s ongoing media takeover is ramping up even more. Another slick episode of Off The Ball chatting with Orlando teammates of course, still a couple more of those on the way. But then there’s also this news about her and Toni Pressley creating their own vegan cooking show…
One of the best days of his life, folks. That’s what the deal is when a proper striker has one of those days where the goals just fly in. There’s a lot of pressure on strikers to put the ball in the back of the net but there’s also massive rewards coming back the other way too.
Rightio so we’ve covered the ladies, now it’s the turn of the blokes in what was a much more confusing Olympic football draw and somehow also a much more beneficial one too. Like, we came out good from this one.
The draw for the Tokyo Olympic football tournaments were held on Wednesday night and it was a mixed bag for kiwi fans. The fellas got an outstanding draw, about as good as they could have hoped for. The ladies meanwhile... yeah not so flash.
The Woodsman has a surprisingly decent record away against Manchester United of late. In fact Burnley as a team always seem to play well at Old Trafford these days. They’d gone four games in a row without defeat at that ground dating back to February 2015.
Little bit of a sad one here as this is the last Premmy Files piece we’ll ever publish. The Premiership is no more. The end of an era in Aotearoa football.
And so it came to this. The 2021 W-League Grand Final. Seven kiwis got minutes throughout the season and two were still standing as Melbourne Victory took on Sydney FC for all the glory. Two who’d still be standing (metaphorically) at the end of 120 minutes of pressure-cooker football.
As with any year, Team Wellington came into what has since become the last ever ISPS Handa Premiership planning on ultimate glory. Eleven games into the regular season that wasn’t looking especially likely. Then suddenly it all clicked.
Nothing makes sense. Assumptions are worthless, reputations are irrelevant. A general sense of confusion is the default state. The more you try and understand things, the more futile that exercise appears. Such is life sometimes.