Charge of the young brigade
It has taken the Wellington Phoenix 17 years to become a genuine A-League title contender, reports
Youth development has been the biggest factor in the Wellington Phoenix being one win away from a maiden A-League Men grand final.
The home side will meet Melbourne Victory in front of a sold-out Sky Stadium today in the second leg of their semifinal, after a 0-0 draw in Melbourne last Sunday.
A win would put the club into the first grand final in their 17-season history – at the end of a season which started with many football followers predicting a wooden-spoon finish.
The Phoenix side will feature a string of players who have come through the club’s Academy system – which began in embryo in 2013 under then head-coach Ernie Merrick.
“I have gone on record saying that the best academy in the A-League is not an Australian one, it’s the Wellington Phoenix,” Merrick said this week. “To me, that’s been the saviour in many ways of the club.”
Former Academy members in goalkeeper Alex Paulsen, defenders Finn Surman and Sam Sutton, captain and midfielder Alex Rufer and attacking wide midfielder Ben Old have all been regular 1st XI members in the surprise-package side which finished second in the regular season.
“After 3½ seasons, I’d had enough because I felt the club wasn’t going to win anything,” said Merrick, who coached the side between 2013 and 2016.
“We’d sign good players who’d go straight to Australia or overseas after they’d done well. I could see then the only way forward was to set up some sort of academy to develop their own New Zealand players.
“I started it early on with Alex Rufer and a few guys we picked up from the [New Zealand] under-17 squad from the Oceania qualifiers in Samoa.”
Former Phoenix defender Ben Sigmund said that during his time at the club, the young players weren’t ready for the big time.
“We just didn’t have those players getting prepared to come in and be an A-League player – in that sense, the professionalism has gone through the roof.
“We were always looking for a player that was already fully developed, that had to come in and do a job, rather than trying to develop our homegrown talent,” said the ex-All White, who played 181 matches for the club over eight years.
“It takes time at that level – they can’t just be thrown in and expected to perform in one game. Some of the young players came in and didn’t do well in the first one or two games and then that was the end of their career, basically. We just didn’t have the structure and the programmes.”
SHAKY GROUND
The club, formed in 2007 through the backing of Wellington businessman Terry Serepisos, has never had the financial clout of A-League giants like the Victory and
Sydney FC. It had money problems early last decade and Serepisos relinquished ownership to a consortium of Wellington businessmen, who have overseen the club since.
“Rob Morrison [Welnix chairman] has done a really good job in making sure the club is financially secure,” Sigmund said.
“But Terry Serepisos, he loved that club and fought so hard for it. I wouldn’t have been a professional footballer possibly if it
wasn’t for Terry, and his love and passion and desire to have professional football in Wellington.”
Merrick said the Phoenix eventually figured out the best way to operate, given its budget. “There is a shortcut, and it’s to bring in the best players, spend an absolute fortune maxing the salary cap and hopefully do well.
“But the way it’s been done by the Phoenix is ideal – homegrown players through
an academy all coming to the forefront.”
Sigmund said the use of imported players could be fraught with danger.
“You want to have two or three very good imports, but that’s not easy to do. You can spend a lot of money, but they can come here and they don’t care, or they’re just finishing their career.
“The talent-spotting is important, to get players who want to be here, and I see that in these current players.’’
Paul Ifill became the club’s marquee signing in 2009, after a career in England with Millwall, Sheffield United and Crystal Palace. He quickly became a fan favourite, playing more than 100 matches for the club, in “what they used to term ‘the glory days’ ”, Ifill laughed. “But we’d flirt with the playoffs, or make the playoffs then be out in the first round.
“The recruitment over the last couple of seasons has been very good. They’ve talked about the culture already in place at the club, how welcome they’ve felt – that’s down to Chiefy [head coach Giancarlo Italiano] and the senior players.
“It’s come a bloody long way – and it needed to. There were a couple of years – around the time of [former coach] Darije Kalezic – where it wasn’t great. Some of the imports weren’t up to scratch and it did fall by the wayside. “But if you look at it under [Mark] Rudan, then [Ufuk] Talay and Chiefy, the club have to be applauded for getting that coaching staff right.”
In 2015, then Football Federation Australia chief executive David Gallop said the club’s owners had been guilty of “squatting’’ on an A-League licence, after denying it a 10-year licence extension – extensions were later granted in chunks of years. “Squatting – that was never the case,” Ifill said.
“And what I loved from that Save The Nix campaign was every other team in the league said ‘no, we want them here’, and that was a pretty nice moment, to know they were behind us.
“It took a bit of time to get back on track – but sometimes you need a kick up the arse.”
WORTH THE WAIT
“It’s been an incredible journey for them,” Merrick said.
“It’s taken 17 years but it’s been worth it, because they’ve done it correctly.”
Sigmund said he’s told Rufer the players must believe and want to go on and win the A-League.
“Sometimes I think New Zealand teams go ‘ah well, we made the final or we got close to the grand final’. But I want this team to create history, to go on and win the grand final.”
Ifill is steeling himself for a long and nervous night. “I can see it going all the way to penalties – which I do not want to be watching.”