Auckland City 1 - Phoenix 0.
Quite frankly 3-0 would not have flattered ACFC from what I saw. Spoonley pulled off at least three great saves to Tamati's one. There has been a lot of talk in the past about the so-called gap between the ASB Premiership and the A League, well that was certainly not on display at Kiwitea Street today. I thought ACFC matched the Nix in every department and for a sizeable period of the match out hustled in midfield (particularly Reira), kept possession better and created more shots on target. And remember the Phoenix are well into their pre-season (this was their ninth game) while ACFC have only just started their's and have only had one competitive match (and that three days ago).
I took along a neutral observer to the game and the verdict was a fairly even match with ACFC the better team overall. I know this is going to stick in the craw of some on this forum but I hope this puts to rest any talk of a big gap between ACFC and the Nix. If Brockie is the A League's second best marksman then he wasn't a good advertisement of the league. I thought Stein looked ponderous compared to Krishna and Tade and Bertos hardly set the place alight. Sigmund had a devil of a time handling the wily Tade.
So that's two games against A League teams, and two wins to ACFC.