Stu Musialik - next Nix signing?

As I was looking through the news last week I saw one piece of information that intrigued me. It said that Stuart Musialik, former Newcastle and Sydney player, two time A-League champion, was off-contract and struggling to find a club, either in the A-League or overseas (link).

Musialik was not retained by Sydney last year – he, nor the team, didn’t have a great season. At the end of the season, he was offered a contract extension with the club, (link) but it was withdrawn after he demanded more money. He played 22 games last year, and even captained the team on occasions (link). Since being released he has been training alone in Newcastle, hoping to find a contract somewhere.

"A-League clubs are either fully loaded or only have a minimum-wage spot left for an under-20 player," Musialik told the Newcastle Herald yesterday. "I have a couple of people putting feelers out for me overseas, but there is nothing concrete in the pipeline.” Well Stuart, I know one A-League club that hasn’t filled its roster too much – in fact at last count we only had 14! Do you fancy a year or two over here in Wellington?

I can only presume Ricki has looked into this possibility – but for me it’s a no brainer. The guy has played Olympic level footy for Australia, and played (and won) two grand finals. He captained Sydney at times last year. Surely he’s worth bringing over. The only thing I presume holding Ricki back is the fact he’s a central midfielder, possibly the only position on the field where we have a bit of depth (Muscat, Brown, Lia). But if all three are playing week-in week-out, like last year, another central midfielder will need to be signed up.

Ricki has said he wants to sign a goalkeeper, striker, and attacking midfielder, as well as the mandatory three under-23 players (fullback, central defender, and midfielder) to fill out the twenty player squad (link). Ok, so Musialik doesn’t fit into these categories. But last year, when guys like Danny Vukovic and Nick Ward were made available, we snapped them up, even if we had those positions (relatively) covered. Maybe this is one of those instances. In any cases, bringing in another quality and experienced A-League player can hardly hurt.

A decent signing like this would also help bring more stability around the perception of the club. The media seems to have gone a bit quiet on the demise of Terry Serepisos recently, and my personal policy on this is a mixture of positive thinking and no smoke (for a while at least) equals no fire. I honestly don’t know how much impact this uncertainty has had on the club’s recruitment, but with another ten weeks of the preseason remaining, it is my personal view that there is still absolutely no rush to finalise the squad, even if other teams have.

Marco - My Thoughts Mark II

So on Friday I had a wee rant about the news that Marco Rojas is about to up and leave the Phoenix for the Melbourne Victory. I was a bit frustrated, angry at the initial reports (without really waiting for proper details to emerge), and also severely unimpressed with the efforts of the New Zealand cricket team, who were playing while I was smashing the keyboard in disgust.

So now I’ve calmed down a bit, read a lot of the reports that have come out in recent days, and formed some (slightly) more thought out and sensible opinions about it all. This blogs talks not about Marco, but also touches on the wider phenomenon that seems to be developing: of New Zealand players developing at the Phoenix before leaving the club. To do this I’m going to wear two completely different hats.

The first hat I am going to wear is going to be my Phoenix hat. I’m a member of the Yellow Fever who gave Marco his crack. It is downright annoying (though maybe not the ‘treachery’ I called it on Friday) that he would leave us for another A-League team. It is hard to know what he thinks he can gain over there that he can’t gain here – especially as he is already a star of the first team. It’s not like the Barbarouses situation in this case. His father has said Marco wants to play as a central midfielder, well with Nick Ward potentially leaving there could well be a hole in the middle of the park. If Marco was that desperate to change positions, surely impressing the national coach would be a good place to start. To sum, in my opinion, with what is (or isn’t) emerging through the media, with Ricki, Terry, and Marco all remaining silent, something doesn’t quite make sense. I think there must be something else that is driving the Yellow Fever’s poster child out of Wellington.

The second hat I am putting on his my one as a supporter of New Zealand football. In this instance, Rojas leaving could well be a positive thing, for two reasons. The first is simple – it is another young Kiwi footballer out there in the big wide world of international football. The more we get out there, the better it is. Simple. The second reason is that it shows that the idea that led to the Phoenix is working. Kiwi footballers are coming into the team, developing, becoming better players and moving on. Shane Smeltz, Glen Moss, Kosta Barbarouses, (plus Tony Lochhead who went on trial at Middlesbrough) have already come through, developed, and moved on to be key members of their respective clubs and the national side. While at this stage we are seeing guys just go to A-League clubs, they are all stars for their respective teams. In what I might term the New Zealand football production line, a truly valuable cog in the system would be the Phoenix.

So switching hats again I guess the question is where to next for the Phoenix, especially post-Marco. Well I would postulate that we will be back to where we were after Smeltz and Moss left, and again after Kosta left. We have ‘produced’ (I use the term ‘produced’ loosely, as I realise Smeltz and Moss were internationals when they were picked up by the Phoenix, however their careers were certainly in the footballing backwater) four top quality Kiwis in four years. That is quite a strike rate and certainly flies in the face of those who worry the Phoenix are not doing their bit to help New Zealand football. More young players will come along, perhaps one already has. Sean Lovemore is a young Kiwi who has already made his debut in the A-League. When he trialled in the last preseason, skipper Andrew Durante said "Sean up front, he's very quick across the ground and he had a couple of good chances to score." While he is still young and yet to be signed for the Phoenix for the next season, I think it goes to show that the production line will continue. The Phoenix will have new heroes rise, and if the past four years is anything to go by, New Zealand footballers will continue to come through and develop in a professional environment, before moving onto bigger and better things.

Marco - what are you doing?

So rumour has it that Marco Rojas is looking likely to sign for another A-League team, probably the Melbourne Victory. If this was to go ahead, this would for me be nothing short of treachery.

First of all, I realise that the Wellington Phoenix are not the top of the pops. Players will get better opportunities to earn more money, and play in better leagues. I also realise if you are not getting the chances to play in the first team here, it is more than fair to seek fresh pastures (both Kosta Barbarouses and Glen Moss are examples of this).

But none of these apply to Rojas. The club showed faith in him when a serious injury struck him down, and got his chance at the backend of the last season. Since then, he hasn’t looked back, and was our best player for the last two months. But the guy’s only played 10 games. Sure, he was the best player on the pitch for six or seven of them, but that’s not even a third of a season. At the end of the day, sure he is talented and has a great future, but at no point do I think he has ‘made it’.

I would not begrudge him if a European team was to take a punt and sign him up. That’s an opportunity no one can turn down. If it was another A-League team though, I would take great exception. I simply can’t grasp what he could achieve in Australia that he can’t here. He won’t want to be playing in the youth league – he makes our first team squad every time he’s fit. Money – well Ricki has said they are basically willing to throw the chequebook at him. Length of deal – well if he’s as good as everyone thinks he might be, Europe will be calling sooner rather than later.

To turn down a deal from the club that he won a fan’s vote awarding him a trial, getting signed, waiting on him for almost two years before giving him his big break, will be a massive kick in the guts to the Wellington Phoenix and Yellow Fever. I for one will be all too happy to dish it out to him big time.

I just hope he sees the light and commits his A-League career here in Wellington.

It's On Like Dylan-Kong

So the general consensus seems to be that Dylan Macallister is a donkey. I would tend to agree. However there seems to be some thought out there that he shouldn’t be re-signed by the Phoenix, that we could do better, and that there are thousands of strikers out there that we could get for similar money, who would do a much better job.

However I have just got back from watching him score the only goal of the game against Newcastle, a win which has really put the Phoenix back into playoff contention. What is becoming very clear is that this season, Macallister has very quickly become our main man in front of goal.



For that reason we need him to stay. He has scored consistently for two months now (6 in 10), and with Rojas and Ward on the flanks, the formation fits him well. He is not pretty to watch, and he does manage to miss some absolute donkey-like sitters (both tonight and last week against Perth). But, and while this is a tenuous comparison, Ruud van Nistelrooy, the great Dutch striker, is hardly beautiful to watch on the ball. Now Dylan doesn’t belong in the same galaxy as Ruud, but the point remains that you don’t have to look like Lionel Messi, or dare I say, Marco Rojas, on the ball to be an effective weapon.



Next season we will have Ifill back from injury, Greenacre, Pavlovic, plus anyone else we manage to pick up. Smeltz has been linked but he’ll stay on the Gold Coast if they can afford him. Killen could be a possibility. Any other options would probably be someone from the English lower divisions or maybe a South or Central American. Even with the success of some (see Ifill, Solorzano etc.) there have been some real duds come to the A-League (Deane, Jardel and others). So there is no guarantee of a glut of goals. If the Phoenix end up banking on an aging Greenacre and a raw Pavlovic to support Ifill we are going nowhere. But a Macallister, from the start of the season going like he has been going, could be really useful.



I can imagine we sign one striker in the off season, as well as re-signing Macallister. We would have a lot of different options for that front three, with Ifill, Macallister, this new striker, Greenacre, Pavlovic, Bertos, Daniel, Ward and Rojas (provided they also re-sign with the club). There is a lot of variation there, and with guys mostly having played this season together, maybe they can gel and become a potent attacking team.

The Nix and the Dom - a pretty one sided game of chicken?

Jonathan Millmow has written an opinion piece in the Dominion Post this morning about the developing standoff between the players at the Phoenix and the papers football writer. For those that haven't seen it, here is the link.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/opinion/4396696/Time-for-Wellington-Phoenix-to-look-in-mirror

For what it's worth here is my take on this situation. When talking to someone earlier in the week about this developing situation, who knows much more about these things than I do, he said this was player driven rather than club driven. That is an important point to make I think. If it was the club I think the perception that creates of Terry throwing his toys (whether justified or not) would rightly lead to questions being asked by the Dom. But this has been driven by the players, and presumably the senior players as Millmow points out.

Apparently it is down to the way the paper handled requests for comment on the Serepisos situation and how it directly related to the players. The way I see it is that it is legitimate for the paper to want comment from the players on this situation as the inference at the time was that it was hindering their ability to get paid. The Dom Post should have known however that these requests were slightly different to ones about smashing cars (Millmows example of ignoring protocol) or about comment on an upcoming opponent. This went directly to the future and credibility of the club. For that reason they should have gone through the appropriate media channels. Would their request for comment have been denied? Probably, but the paper has made its own bed and now needs to lie in it.

These kind of battles are always won by the public perception the issue creates. If this kind of thing had happened when the Phoenix were winning then I think people brush it off and move on. But unfortunately they aren't, they're playing like rubbish and as Millmow points out crowds are down. The players have a responsibility to the club and to its fans to front up to Wellingtons only newspaper. Should they refuse to comment after requests come through inappropriate channels? Absolutely, but they should behave like professionals if the Dom behaves in the same way.

My take on it as implied by the title of this piece was that the Phoenix were trying to get the Dom to back down, apologise or resolve the matter quietly. Whoever thought that was going to happen clearly doesn't get it. The Dom have at their disposal the newspaper to sell their side of the story and sell it they have. To your casual sports fan that piece does not reflect well on the Phoenix and unfortunately the Nix rely on the casual sports fan deciding on a beautiful Wellington Saturday night that rather than having a Barby they will come down to the stadium.

Oh well, the day-time TV soap that is the Phoenix, Terry and the Dom continues. How can the club stop it? Winning. Winning will do it. Lets hope tonight a W in the column has the Dom writing good news stories on Monday.

Shiny happy people laughing

Shiny happy people holding hands...

OK- maybe not the holding hands part, but definitely the laughing part. And almost definitely a bit of hugging and a few high-fives. I don't think that I have celebrated a Phoenix goal that hard for a long long time. When that first goal went in I pretty much screamed myself hoarse, and it was that way all around in the Fever Zone. It meant that much to the fans, and for once this season, you could see how important it was for the players.

It got me thinking back to something that we'd talked about in the flat a couple of months ago. The Nix' start to this season wasn't too bad. They had scored something like 14 goals in the first 10 games, so not too bad. What we noticed was the real lack of celebration after a goal was scored. If I'm remembering correctly, when a goal was scored in past seasons, the whole team went mental, with everyone bar calm Pasty generally joining in on a good old football orgy.

It was almost as if the players thought that we should be scoring goals- or that possibly it was our 'rite' to score goals. Possibly a sign of arrogance- or it's also conceivable that there wasn't the same pride or passion in the team that there had been in previous years.

Last night however, there was one hell of a celebration when the goal was scored- fans and players alike. The image of Iffy below is priceless, you can just see the relief and ecstasy on his face, showing a real passion for the game.


I believe that body language and the actions of the players around the game give away so much of how the game is going to play out. Last night the Nix were absolutely killing it in the warm-up, while the Heart were messing around with pot-shots at goal. The haka is another prime example of this- an impassioned haka often resulting in a victory, and a bollocks haka- well, ending in a loss to the Wallabies in Hong Kong. Alas, this is a topic for another blog.

Should this focus and passion continue, I'm willing to bet that this really will be a turning point for the Phoenix season.

The Saturday Review: The Good, The Great and The Phoenix

Well what a Saturday night!

Lets start with the good. The All Blacks hammering of Scotland was perhaps their best performance since those victories over South Africa at home in July. It was 60 minutes of Rugby that we haven't been able to put together since then. The naysayers will say it was just Scotland but you still have to be able to put the performance on the field. This All Black team has no peer, they should not have to worry about what other teams do because if they play as they can then no body will get close.

The big talking point will obviously be Sonny Bill, the potential this guy has is absolutely mindblowing. Whether it was the move to 2nd 5 or more confidence he got himself in the game this week much more than last. From memory he threw three passes that led directly to tries and was involved earlier on in the chain for others. Its a bit scary how good he could be in honesty. In the past I was never a Nonu fan but have changed my mind on him in the last 36 months, he is world class and in the Tri-Nations was the best 2nd 5 on show anywhere in the world. But he should be looking over his shoulder.

The other two guys I was looking for big performances from also stood up. Hosea again showed how damaging he can be, he has a combination of speed, strength and deception that we haven't seen in a while and used it to great effect. Liam Messam was great also, he showed that he could mix it up physically but showed at a couple of points the completely unique skill set that he has.

All in all a great performance, even Beaver looked alright when he came on late!

There are few better sights for a Kiwi than watching an Australian team lose, especially when losing in the big games is becoming  bit of a habit for the Kangaroos at the moment. The Kiwis last night were special, they showed the kind of spirit and character that only the Kiwis can show and played as a 'brotherhood'. They were poor at Eden Park the week before and they knew it but to bounce back the way they did was outstanding.

Benji Marshall is a freak, people have known that for some time but outside the 05 Grand Final you could almost argue he has never massively stood up in a big game. He did last night. That kick for Nightingale was perfection, the fact that is exactly what he was trying to do might be lost on some people but the ability to do that comes from years of messing around in a backyard or at training trying to figure out what you can make an oval ball do.

Smarter scribes than I will provide better analysis but the Kiwis in victory are  joy. Without wanting to sound racist there is something so primal about the way they win and celebrate it. If Richie is lifting a gold trophy at Eden Park next year can you imagine him asking his team to channel an American Reality TV show character in celebration (I am reliably informed the fist pump thing is a reference to the Jersey Shore) or can you imagine Ryan Nelsen punctuating a post match interviews with a big yuss and saying youze. Just great stuff.

Now to the Phoenix. Ive been supporting the Phoenix since day 1 and can categorically state I have never been as frustrated as I am right now. Sure in Season 1 and 2 we had some dark days but back then we probably didn't have the squad that should be challenging round the top of the table like this one should.

On defence god only knows what is going on. Jade North slipped over last night to give Rose time for his first, somehow Pasty tripped over himself to let the second go in and I had switched off mentally to know what was going on for the third.

Perhaps more worryingly though is the attack. We have scored two goals in our past 3 games, both of them being wonder strikes from outside the box. We have plain not looked like creating anything. We'e never had a creative midfielder, we buy people to fill the slot and they turn out to be garbage. Last season we got away with it because nobody could stop Paul Iffil. This year they can, where last year he would beat 3 men then shoot this year he crosses first time to a non-existent target man. Leo Bertos is playing quite well and Chris Greenacre continues to try but the goals aren't coming and its just painful.

I guess the only thing keeping us diehards going and giving us hope (perhaps false hope) is that we could quite comfortably do what we did last year and go on a run. But at the moment you just can't see where the spark is going to come from.



And last but not least a big thanks to Rich, Fletch, Rach and Jose for plying me with cocktails after the Phoenix game which eased my pain!