20/21 Season - Wellingong Phoenix

Roar v Nix game is also at Dolphins Oval in Redcliffe instead of Suncorp

Disappointed there isn't a lopsided draw regarding home/away games in case there is a travel bubble later in the season. 

That would have required some foresight from the FFA.

Any chance we have player signings that were pending the release of the draw? Is that a thing?

Lots of games with short turn arounds in the first half of the season. I can see why Talay wants to pad out his squad a bit. Expect more Aussie signings I reckon.

Wonder how much Wollongong might get behind/adopt the Phoenix as supporters. 

Aren't we just a player or two off the revised squad max?

(2/4) Ulises Davila is out of quarantine tomorrow and Stefan Marinovic on Tuesday.

Phoenix hope to play the three-game stretch of home games against WUN, ADL and CCM in Wellington if travel bubble opens.

— Jason Pine (@pineyzb) November 24, 2020

Was hoping as soon as a travel bubble is sorted, we would get the rest of our regular season games in Welly but these 3 games might be all we get.

No T H-W? Or triallists?

Wonder if that was Charlie Devereux and Peter Kekeris scoring again tonight

The Wellington Phoenixs journey to Wollongong may have felt like a whirlwind to many fans. However, the wheels of motion for the move were first set almost 18 months ago. The University of Wollongong announced in May 2019 that the would join forces with English Premier League powerhouse Tottenham Hotspur to create a global football program. Since then, the UOW Tottenham Hotspur Global Football Academy has gone from strength to strength, offering a suite of scholarships specifically for Illawarra students, along with receiving training from FA and UEFA-qualified coaches.
It may not have been intended, but the innovative program also put Wollongong on the A-Leagues map. And when COVID-19 flipped the world upside down in 2020, causing chaos for world travel, the Phoenix were left without a home ahead of the 2020/21 season. Enter the UOW. The Wellington club arrived in the Illawarra in November, setting up at the university for pre-season training. The Phoenix were originally expected to stay for three weeks, however, Football Federation Australia confirmed the leagues worst-kept secret on Tuesday that they will remain in Wollongong for the entire upcoming season. The Phoenix will keep training at the UOW play all home games at WIN Stadium over the coming months. Its pretty exciting. We began working with the Phoenix for some months now, when it became clear that the pandemic was going to close borders. And its all come to fruition. I think its great for the community, great for football and great for the university as well, UOWs Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Global Strategy, Professor Alex Frino said. The universitys pushing sport along, we have a global sport strategy in place. And football is a key component of that. Weve obviously got the relationship and the academy with Tottenham thats in place and is hugely successful, and this continues the relationship that the university has with football. The UOW has been no stranger to joining forces with sporting clubs - particularly in New Zealand. In January, the university announced it would partner with Super Rugby giants The Crusaders to offer a Player Development Program. Its funny, the Kiwis seem to love Wollongong. Were doing both rugby and football with our friends from across the ditch. Wellington is a great team and the university is going to get behind them, and we hope that the community does too, Professor Frino said. We came to their attention because of the relationship we have with Tottenham. Their CEO [David Dome] came across just before the pandemic broke, and had a look at our facilities and what we were doing. We hope that we will be able to grow our relationship with them. It has been no secret that Wollongong has been pushing hard for their own A-League team. In April 2018, the Wolves officially declared they were ready to launch their bid to play in Australias top football competition. The Illawarra, of course, missed out. In December that year, Football Federation Australia announced the green light for newcomers Western United and Macarthur FC, who joined the competition over a two-season period. However, fast forward to November 2020. Could the Phoenixs temporary stay in Wollongong open the door for a permanent A-League team? Id love to see an A-League and a W-League team in Wollongong. And I think anything can happen, Professor Frino said. The Illawarra is a very strong football region, it always has been. And its great to see elite football at its highest level come back to the region. We hope that this demonstrates that we can really feel that support for an A-League club. Im sure that we can, but we need to demonstrate it. For the Phoenix players, it is just great to have a permanent home base ahead of the A-League competition starting in late December. However, midfielder Alex Rufer said it had been a smooth transition moving to Wollongong. The players are enjoying it so far. Weve got some good training under our belts and were raring to go, Rufer, 24, said. The players are loving it here. Theres some beautiful beaches that we will spend good time at as well and the weathers a bonus.
The Phoenix are aiming to build on their breakout performance last season. After finishing sixth in 2018/19, the team achieved a club-best third finish before crashing out in the first week of finals. Rufer, who has played more than 60 A-League games since joining Wellington in 2013, says there is still room for improvement. Ive been here for a number of years now and the preparation is always the same. We prepare to win, and we prepare to put up a good fight. I think, the last few years especially, weve done that. Weve done extremely well and weve got high standards here that we want to reach them. We want to play finals football, thats why were here, he said. Weve grown so much. Last season, we created history by coming third. And we want to finish higher than that and achieve better things in the finals. Weve done extremely well the last few years, but I think weve been a little unlucky in terms of the chances weve created: we just couldnt score. But that comes. The more time were there, the more experience we have. Its great that weve been there, now its about taking that next step. A key to Phoenixs success could be their head coach Ufuk Talay. After spending a season as a Sydney FC assistant coach, Talay moved across the ditch to lead Wellington last season.
It wasnt a smooth start. The Phoenix sat bottom of the ladder after seven rounds before roaring home strongly in the back half of the season. Rufer hopes his team will start off on the right foot in 2020/21. It was a slow start, but I think it shaped us as a team. We were learning the new style that Ufuk brought in and now weve got a whole season under our belts. Pre-season has started very well and who knows what can happen this season, he said. Its obviously a shame that we cant play in front of our home fans at Sky Stadium but without the travel, we can recover quicker and prepare better for games. But its business as usual and we will take it game by game. As well as achieving on-field success, Rufer wants to see the Wollongong community get behind his club. Were excited to get as many fans here as we can and hopefully expand our amazing fan base, and do the best we can, he said.

Who do you think will be the Captain?

Marinovic, DeVere, Ball?

In general, compared to a lot of the other teams I feel we have remained largely intact, but more importantly, I don't feel our quality has dropped too much.

Hooper for Hemed, Lewis for McCowatt and I don't think a Devlin/Rufer pairing is that much worse than either of them fronting up with Steinmann. Taylor is a loss, but Wihongi looks capable and will allow us to play a better passing game which could be a strength.

The big unknown is McGarry for Cacace, especially with Sutton looking like our back up, we need him to prove his worth.

We have 8 games between 29 Dec - 31 Jan. In the Australian summer heat.

It's a challenging schedule to start the season. Lucky we have a reatively young squad.

A lot of HAL teams have young squads this season and will be playing in the same heat, its not like the Nixs are basing them self in cold NZ before games. They will climatize to the weather if not already and dont have to worry about long travels to games. Silverware here we cum!

A lot of HAL teams have young squads this season and will be playing in the same heat, its not like the Nixs are basing them self in cold NZ before games. They will climatize to the weather if not already and dont have to worry about long travels to games. Silverware here we cum!

Exactly! We have surely had long enough in NSW to be acclimatised now to the hotter temperatures. Heat can't be an excuse unless it starts hitting 35° and above during matches. That's tough for any team.