WELCOME FROM GM DAVID DOME Nau mai, haere mai and welcome to Netstrata Jubilee Stadium in Sydney for the men’s third Isuzu UTE A-League match in a week. The team are officially on a roll! They made a great start to the ‘February Football Frenzy’ by beating Macarthur FC at Campbelltown on Sunday and then followed it up by downing the newly crowned FFA Cup champions, Melbourne Victory, in Wollongong on Wednesday night. They have now won three straight
matches in the league to sit on the verge of the top six. Crazy to think this time last week we were bottom of the ladder! Avenging the FFA Cup semi-final defeat was particularly sweet and showed what they can achieve when the team is close to fullstrength.
Reno Piscopo scored his second goal in as many matches and looks to be revelling playing alongside our new Mexican magician Gael Sandoval. Fellow January signing Scott Wootton also looked the part in his club debut to help us secure our first clean sheet of the season. He’s a great communicator and will bring extra leadership to the side. Today’s opponents Adelaide United have been our bogey side in the past. They beat us 4-0 in Adelaide on New Year’s Day, but we are not the same side they were seven weeks ago. Our match is the first of a doubleheader, with Sydney FC to play Western United in the night cap. I want to thank Sydney FC for running the double-header and helping us cut our costs. It’s been enormously challenging for the club having to relocate the
men for a third season in a row, not that you would know it when you talk to the players, coaches and management. They get on with the job and never complain. They have a great set-up in Chatswood and top-quality training facilities at Valentine Sports Park. This wouldn’t be possible if it wasn’t for the support of our commercial partners on both sides of the Tasman. Spark, Oppo, Chemist Warehouse, ELMO and Gazley-Skoda are the men’s biggest supporters and the team also gets great local assistance from Fraternity Club, BaiMed and Southern Classic Cars. Nothing happens on the pitch without the support of these great businesses. COYN!
PHOTOGRAPHY: Speed Media, Getty Images PRINTING: TBD Design www.tbd.co.nz COPYRIGHT: Reproduction in whole or in part by any means is prohibited. DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher. Although all material is checked for accuracy, no liability is assumed by the publisher for any loss due to material in this magazine. All details are correct as at time of print.
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YOUR 2021/22 WELLINGTON PHOENIX SQUAD #3
DEF
#4
MID
#8
GAEL SANDOVAL
# 11
JAUSHUA SOTIRIO
MID
# 18
FWD
BEN WAINE
#6
#9
FWD
# 14
# 10
# 16
ALEX RUFER (CAPTAIN)
DEF
SAM SUTTON
MID
RENO PISCOPO
MID
# 19
DEF
TIM PAYNE
DAVID BALL
NICHOLAS PENNINGTON
DEF
CALLAN ELLIOT
MID
# 13
DEF
JAMES McGARRY
BEN OLD
FWD
# 17
#5
SCOTT WOOTTON
MATTHEW BOZINOVSKI
#7
DEF
DEF
LOUIS FENTON
# 20
GK
OLI SAIL
YOUR 2021/22 WELLINGTON PHOENIX SQUAD # 21
DEF
# 23
MID
JOSH LAWS
# 33
CLAYTON LEWIS
DEF
# 34
FINN SURMAN
# 88
# 31
# 40
JACKSON MANUEL
3
James Delianov George Timotheou
GK
# 43
FWD
OSKAR VAN HATTUM
17 Mohamed Toure
FWD
18 Joe Caletti
MID
19 Yaya Dukuly
FWD
21 Javi Lopez
DEF
22 Michael Jacobsen
DEF
23 Jacob Tratt
DEF
GK
25 Lachlan Barr
DEF
DEF
27 Joshua Cavallo
DEF MID
4
Nick Ansell
DEF
28 Juande Prados
6
Louis D’Arrigo
MID
31 Bernardo
MID
7
Ryan Kitto
FWD
37 Jonny Yull
MID
MID
40 Ethan Cox
GK
FWD
41 Alexandar Popovic
DEF
MID
46 Joe Gauci
GK
FWD
66 Nestory Irankunda
FWD
14 George Blackwood
FWD
77 Lachlan Brook
FWD
15 Hiroshi Ibusuki
FWD
Coach: Carl Veart
8 9
Stefan Mauk (captain) Kusini Yengi
10 Isaias Sanchez 11
COACH UFUK TALAY
FWD
GEORGE OTT
ALEX PAULSEN
FWD
GARY HOOPER
# 32
KURTIS MOGG
MID
1
DEF
Craig Goodwin
FEATURE:
WOOTTON: I KNOW I CAN PLAY A LOT BETTER Scott Wootton is thrilled with how his Wellington Phoenix debut went, but he isn’t satisfied.
The experienced English defender made his long-awaited first appearance in a Phoenix shirt on Wednesday night against newly crowned FFA Cup champions Melbourne Victory. Wootton shook off a troublesome quad injury to play the full 90 minutes and Wellington left Wollongong with three points and their first clean sheet of the season. “If you had said to me on the day of the game you’ll get through the game completely unscathed, you’ll come through 90 minutes, the team will win and you’ll keep a clean sheet I would have absolutely snapped your hand off,” Wootton said. “It was really pleasing from all those aspects.” But the 30-year-old knows he “can play a lot better”. “It was my first game for a few months and I felt like I lacked a bit of sharpness but that’ll come with the more games I played. “I’ll get better than that, because it was my first game in a while and you’re always a bit nervous and a bit subconscious when you’ve just come back to your first game from injury.”
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Wootton joined the Phoenix in Sydney a couple of years into the new year and was planning to make
his debut against Western United on Friday, January 21. But he suffered the quad strain just a couple of days after arriving in Australia. “I was so excited to join the team and play in the A-League and all these things. I was probably a bit too keen, a bit eager to get myself ready for that first game. “A lot of people had warned me about the flight and the travel and told me to really take it easy, take your time, but it’s not in your nature as a professional athlete to take that approach. “You want to come in, you want to hit the ground running, you want to get stuck in straight away and I was probably a bit too keen really to prove my fitness for that first game against Western United.” Wootton has credited strength and conditioning coach Weijii Lim and physios Benjamin Venn and Cory Glover for getting him ready to play again. “I missed two league matchess and a semi-final which obviously is disappointing, but I came with 20 league games left and hopefully if I play 18 games missing two won’t be the end of the world. “That first couple of weeks was incredibly frustrating but that’s
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It’s been quite tough really. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t.” behind me now and I’ll be doing everything I can to recover to make sure I’m available for every game.” Scott Wootton has played more than 200 league matches in England across the Championship, League One and League Two and is well placed to assess how the A-League stacks up.
Wootton has also enjoyed settling into life with the Phoenix in Sydney. “It couldn’t have gone much smoother to be honest. The squad of players have welcomed me really well, along with the staff. “We’ve got a really good dressing room. Quite a young team, but with myself and Oli (Sail) coming back we’ve got a bit more experience in the team and that’ll only help us.” The hardest adjustment he has had to make has been living on the
“Technically and tactically it’s definitely minimum Championship level from what I’ve seen, what I’ve watched and what I’ve now experienced playing in.
opposite side of the world to his two daughters, aged 11 months and six. “It’s been quite tough really. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t. “They’re going to come over for a few weeks in April, while my daughter is off school, so it’ll be great to see them. “They’re counting down the days already. Just waiting for visas and admin stuff and then we’ll book the flights. It’ll give me a little boost and gives me something to look forward to.” Wootton knows a lot of his teammates are in the same boat as a result of the team’s relocation to Sydney and he believes it has brought them closer.
“It’s different to England in terms of it’s more of a Europeans style, partly down to the heat.
“We’re all living in the same block of apartments, the lads are doing stuff outside of training together, probably spending more time than they would usually.
“England is freezing cold so the games are played at 100 miles an hour, because you can, because the heat isn’t a factor. “It’s definitely a completely different style, but one that I think will suit me and one that I’m relishing and loved so far.” GETTY IMAGES
“You’ve got to always try and find positives out of any situation and hopefully that camaraderie and team spirit…hopefully will take us to a good place this season.”
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THE PHOENIX WISHES TO THANK THE FOLLOWING BUSINESSES & ORGANISATIONS FOR THEIR SUPPORT THIS 2021/22 SEASON: P R I N C I P A L
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