It was Saturday 6th April, and twilight was beginning to descend on the Central Coast Stadium.
The clock had just ticked 90 minutes in a table-topping clash in which leaders Wellington Phoenix looked to enhance – or at least maintain – their three-point lead at the top of the A-League Men ladder, over their opponents on the night, second-placed Central Coast Mariners, when the inevitable happened.
Mariners winger Mikael Doka, finding acres of space in the middle of the park, advanced into the final third. Shrugging off the halfhearted attentions of Phoenix’s Bulgarian midfielder Bozhidar Kraev, Doka looked up, picked his spot, and curled a left-footed strike from beyond the edge of the box into the bottom right-hand corner of Alex Paulsen’s goal.
It was a moment that, into the hearts of Phoenix fans – both at Central Coast Stadium’s “Little Corner of Yellow” that day, and across the Tasman – struck despair, devastation and, most of all, doubt.
A moment when the question – one that danced first on the tips of Phoenix fans’ imaginations, then their tongues, before we even dared to begin to believe – was put to its biggest test yet, and was found wanting.
The answer to that question might now, with the Mariners leading the A-League Men entering the final three games of the question, have its answer: No, they can’t.
But is it that straightforward? Let's take a look.
As it stands, both the Mariners and the Phoenix have 46 points, with the Central Coast, having won more games, hogging the top spot. (They also have a better goal difference, +16 to the Phoenix’s +12.) Going purely by their respective opponents’ positions on the A-League ladder, the Mariners also have the easier opponents: Western United (A), Adelaide United (H), and Newcastle Jets (A).
This latter fixture will, in particular, ensure the Mariners have no shortage of motivation heading into the last round of the season: with the chance to seal the Premiers Plate on the turf of their arch-rivals a tantalising prospect for Central Coast’s servants and their fans. (A prospect that holds added weight given the question marks hovering over the Jets’ financial viability, and ergo existence, beyond this season; as well as the fact that Jets linchpin Lucas Mauragis – a former Phoenix player, no less – looks Mariners bound for 2024/25.)
The Phoenix, by contrast, will face third-placed Melbourne Victory – a team they’ve failed to beat on two occasions this season; scraping a pair of 1-1 draws first without a single shot on target, and later by virtue of a fortuitous stoppage time penalty – this Friday at Sky Stadium, before a trip to Newcastle a week later. The Phoenix wrap up their season, at home, against fifth-placed Macarthur FC.
The average league position of the Mariners’ final trio of opponents, then, is 10th; the Phoenix’s is 6th. And, if the Central Coast win their final three games, the A-League Men Premiers Plate (affectionately dubbed the “toilet seat”) will be finding a new home in Gosford. That’s the bad news for Phoenix fans.
So how about some good news?
First, there’s a little thing called the AFC Cup – a continental competition the Mariners have reached the inter-zonal finals of. They’ll play Kyrgyz side Abdish-Ata Kant across two legs – the first, a week from now, in Kyrgyzstan; the second on 24 April – fixtures which, aside from an additional 180 (at least) minutes of football, also represent gruelling 24-hour journeys each way. These fixtures form the meat in a juicy triple-stack sandwich of A-League fixtures for the Mariners, which are nestled either side of their final A-League home fixture against Adelaide.
The second mitigating – and, if you’re a fan of a Phoenix persuasion, inspiring – factor at play? That, despite their lacklustre seasons, and positions in the ladder, the Mariners’ lowly opponents aren’t actually all that bad right now.
Adelaide United, for instance, have taken a maximum nine points from their last three games, and scored nine in the process – with their last two games each boasting a four-goal glut. Nestory Irankunda is playing out of his skin in the long-heralded denouement of his career in South Australia, while Japanese import Hiroshi Ibusuki has also been among the goals.
Similarly, the Newcastle Jets will face Brisbane this weekend fresh off the back of a surprisingly thorough working over of in-form Sydney FC, having held the talent-hoarding Melbourne City scoreless the week prior.
Ever since the Jets were beaten 2-1 at home by the Phoenix on 27 January, Newcastle's last nine games have yielded only three losses: not title-winning form, granted, but not as bad a run as one might expect from a team languishing in the cellar of the A-League. Especially when those losses came to the table-topping Mariners, plus – wait for it – Adelaide United and Western United: two of the Mariners’ three remaining opponents.
That aforementioned drubbing at Adelaide aside, Western have been in surprisingly good form, too. They head into this weekend’s round of fixtures fresh off a convincing 4-2 win against Macarthur at their new stadium, the Regional Football Facility in Tarneit. Earlier in the year, Western held both Melbourne Victory and Brisbane Roar to hard-fought 2-2 results either side of two impressive wins: trumping travel-shy Perth 1-0 before overturning Western Sydney Wanderers 3-1 on their own patch.
That bad loss to Adelaide aside, you have to go all the way back to 10 February to find a game Western loss by more than a lone goal – in Wellington, a 2-0 result that went the home side's way on a sun-drenched afternoon at Sky Stadium.
It’s one of the most time-honoured and taxing football cliches: that, in football, anyone can beat anyone. In the era of “peak A-League”, though, this trope isn’t mere reduction – it’s reality. And, as a result, the Mariners’ fixtures may not be as simple as they seem at first glance.
So how about the Phoenix's run in? Wellington do, of course, also play the Jets – but how do their other two opponents stack up?
Melbourne Victory are, of course, always a tough opponent – whether it’s on paper or in practice. Their last four games have borne three 2-1 victories (against Adelaide United, Perth Glory, and, most recently, in the Melbourne Derby), and you have to go back five games for the last time they lost: 3-2 in Brisbane.
It also doesn’t help that the Phoenix – despite holding the Victory to two draws already this season – have a horrible record against their Victorian counterparts. In the 48 times the two clubs have met, the Phoenix have won only 11: drawing 13, losing 24, and conceding 92 goals in the process. (Incidentally, the joint-most – alongside Adelaide United – the Phoenix have conceded against any one club.) The only real saving grace is that, with AAMI Park having historically been a graveyard for the Phoenix, the game will take place on Kiwi soil.
The pressure on the game is further ratcheted up, however, by the Victory’s ability to – with a win at Sky Stadium this Friday – close the gap to the Phoenix to a mere two points. Which invites a chilling, but all-too real permutation for Phoenix fans: that, if the Victory win both their remaining games, Wellington can’t afford to lose either of their final matches if they want to hang onto top spot. (The first time, if they manage it, in the club’s 17-year history.)
Given the Victory’s final two matches are against the inconsistent Brisbane Roar and a Western Sydney Wanderers side that has the potential to be on the wrong side of a 7-0 drubbing in their locker (and to a patchy Melbourne City side, no less), few would bet against the Victory to do just that.
As for Macarthur, it’s a much rosier picture. In ten meetings to date, the Phoenix have won six, and lost just twice: scoring 19, and conceding just eight. You’d have to go flip the calendar back more than 14 months for the last positive result Macarthur got against Wellington, and the earlier two times the pair met this season resulted in six points for the ‘Nix – one of those a particularly memorable, and comprehensive, 3-0 win at the Campbelltown Stadium.
Perhaps, then, the scenario doesn’t look as gloomy for the Phoenix as it did when Doka’s shot rippled the next last week. Perhaps, the Mariners’ trying schedule – five games in 44 days, three of them away from home – will catch up with them. Perhaps, now they’re finally wearing the proverbial crown, their heads will become heavy; perhaps the Phoenix have the gas for one final push in the idiomatic tank.
Not that the Phoenix have any control over any of this anymore. All they can do is win all three of their remaining games: a task which starts when they entertain one of the league's most resource-laden and dangerous sides in two nights’ time. That result may not go all the way to deciding the Phoenix’s ultimate fate – one which can, now, be as high as first, yet only as low as third – but it will go most of the way.
All we, as Phoenix fans, can do is sit back. Cross our fingers. Cheer on our team.
And wait.
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