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Aside from Adelaide United going from strength to strength domestically and in Asia, one of the most positive football stories in what has been an otherwise underwhelming six months or so for the local game has been the transformation of Wellington Phoenix into a competitive A-League club.
Only in its second season, the New Zealanders (but Australians by registration, as they prefer to be for political and strategic reasons) are tugging at Queensland Roar’s shorts for a place in the finals and have won five of their past eight matches.
The win over Newcastle on Sunday in Wellington was absolutely crucial to those ambitions and they did it with some alacrity; 3-0 is a result not to be discounted, even though a churlish Gary van Egmond, faced with ignominy of collecting the wooden spoon, did his utmost to do just that in the wake of the defeat, damning Ricki Herbert’s men with faint praise:
“They don’t play a great deal of football … I don’t think that, realistically, the football they show is something which is going to put them in good stead for the top four …
“They’re always going to work extremely hard, but I think they play a lot off the cuff and a lot of the second phase.
“They’ve got a great goalscorer in Shane Smeltz so if anything happens to him I think they’d be in real trouble.”
Some of which might be true, but it’d be more becoming for Van Egmond to be a little more generous to a team that has beaten his own side twice in eight weeks, five goals to zip, Melbourne 2-1, Sydney 2-1 and Central Coast 1-0; while Queensland just shaded it 3-2 in Brisbane.
The Phoenix’s only truly disastrous result has been that 6-1 wrecking job by Adelaide United at Hindmarsh in December.
Like Van Egmond said, the Phoenix have a fine striker in Smeltz, who will be a massive loss when he departs for Miron Bleiberg’s Gold Coast United, but the team has other talent: the redoubtable Glen Moss, as good a goalkeeper in the league as any, Joe Marston Medal winner Andrew Durante, All Whites captain Tim Brown and naturalised Brazilian Daniel. (Perhaps Van Egmond’s still smarting from the defection of one-time Jets pair Brown and Durante across the ditch.)
With a home ground that fits near on 35,000, attendances are not as good as they could be, with the average gate well down on last season, but this has been a trend across the league and, like Perth in the past month, a combination of form and the frisson of finals contention should boost the crowd for the club’s round 20 grudge match with Adelaide well into the 12,000 to 20,000 mark, if not beyond.
What’s even more encouraging for the future of the club, though, is the stated intention of Football Federation Australia to be “firmly committed to Wellington Phoenix being in the A-League” in the wake of contradictory messages put out by FIFA president Sepp Blatter and Asian Football Confederation boss Mohamed bin Hammam regarding their place in the league beyond 2011.
Where Blatter blows, the FFA’s sails follow, and so if Blatter can hold to his word (not as straightforward as you might think) that should the FFA and New Zealand Football wish for the Phoenix to stay in the league they will get FIFA’s blessing, then we can look forward to the prospect of the Phoenix being a regular finals contender for seasons to come.
Their safe haven in the A-League would also set a valuable precedent for any other foreign teams wishing to take part in our domestic competition.
As regular readers of mine will well know, I support the idea of a Singapore team in the league and at current levels of expansion it is a hypothetical that could well become a real issue in a very short period of time.
So Herbert and his team deserve both our congratulations and thanks.
They’ve brightened up this season with their fighting spirit and some good football – and blazed a path to these shores for other exotic teams to follow.
Long may it continue.
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