OCL SF | Team Wellington vs Auckland City | Sun 29nd Apr | 12:30pm | Oceania Football

Should be a tough game, Auckland wanting to continue their run and Welly wanting revenge. Who comes out on top?

Stream: https://www.oceaniafootball.com/ofc-champions-league-wlgauc-semi-final-leg-1/

Wow Auckland are messy at the back, TW pressing extremely high and forcing tons of mistakes from the usually calm ACFC defense and midfield. Auckland had the best chance of the match, McCowatt having a header from close in and Basalaj pulling of a brilliant reaction save to keep it out.

What a shocking quality stream.

I'm not sure why we've been starting with Chris Bright instead of Mica. He's bang average. 

We looked so much better after we subbed him off against TW in the league final, hopefully Ramon has a proper plan for him this time

So far he doesn't. He's not fast or good with his feet, so we should be using him as a target man if anything; but he doesn't even hold it up that well. Tade's so much better in a central attacking role

Horrific collision between Hailemariam and Zubikarai

Very even first half.  Both teams having a couple of golden chances to take the lead but failing to do so. Kilkolly failed to capitalise on a Berlanga slip and shot right at the ACFC keeper.  Scotty with a great close range save and then lucky when Tade hit the post from close range. ACFC not their usual domineering force but they showed they can come from nowhere and punish you. Best players so far I'd say Molloy, Kilkolly, Kayara, Tade in no particular order.

Yeah I feel like individually TW have far the better players today, Auckland are kind of brutishly forcing their way forward while guys like Kayara and Kilkolly are splitting the Auckland defense open. Still very even and could go either way, though I got faith in Ramon ;)

Normally OFC streams are excellent. What's the deal with it this time?

Fifa stoped paying them 

There's more noise in a Graveyard than at this game

Fixed

Peverly not good enough. 

All in all a very entertaining game.  I do think over the 90, TW were the better side and looking at possession, build up play and chances, they could easily have taken a one-goal lead.  This being said, ACFC probably came closest to scoring, so in the end a draw is pretty fair (and I'd rather a goalless draw in this case).

I'm not the biggest fan of Molloy, but man he had a ripper yesterday, he ran the full length of the pitch about 100 times! Nati did well too but was too predictable and never crossed the ball first-time.  Ok to try and beat the defender on the wing once or twice, but when you have runners getting into the box, just try and wack that ball in!

Bevin also very good - unlucky not to score with a lovely volley.  Kayara is excellent, I actually wouldn't mind seeing him in a stripey...

Is Allen still unwell from that bug he caught in the Solomons?

Interesting to see Watto not coming on, but based on current form, you can't fault Jose for persevering with Nati and Kilkolly etc.

The problem is that he really doesn't have a great target for a first time cross - unless you play Watto from the start (and why would you!). It's definitely an element of variety that TeeDubs are missing from last season, when Harris and Jacko were actually decent aerial threats. So you're really dependent on either overlaps or beating players 1-on-1 to make attacking the width worthwhile, otherwise you're just wasting possession. I thought Nati was excellent, and on a different day couple of his runs/decisions would have led to a couple of goals. Wasn't to be, but looking forward to the return leg.

Highlights here 

Totally agree - he did play well and was very mobile etc, I just felt like he could have tried mixing it up a bit. Fair call, without  Jacko and Harris we lack height and power up front, but a few times Nati had the likes of Bevin, Mario etc making runs and you never know what could have happened.

This being said, if we play with the same intensity next week, we could actually get something out of it!

Well, what a lot of chances not taken!

Fudge me TW have been dominating. Hope Ramon has a stern word with the whole team, Auckland’s attack has messed up every chance they’ve got. 2-0 to TW

Tade has been sharke for a long time now

BOOM! 

Away Goals take TeeDubs to the HOME n AWAY   Finals - 

Congrats to Team Welly! Well played.

How many minutes extra time did we need. I was on the verge of throwing up with nerves

Congrats to Wellington, totally outplayed us in the first half and managed to carry it through. Do NZ proud in the final and CWC!

Congratulations to Team Wellington, good to see a changing of the guard - but that being said, TW still have to win the final first!

So Lautoka FC from Fiji in the two legged final.  First leg in Wellington on the weekend of 12th/13th May

Imagine the scenes if Micah didn’t mess up that chance in the eleventh minute of injury time

Can’t believe how trash Auckland were in the first half, especially Tade - overrated as hell in my book. Ramon did a job of bringing us back but it wasn’t to be. Maybe he shouldn’t have tried a drastically new formation and started a injury prone teenager with next to zero game time under his belt as the main midfield pivot in a must win semifinal game to potentially win us millions of $$$

Ramon's time at AK City may be up what was he doing changing the formation in a big game like this.He's lost if he can't play all his imports like he has in the league and even that was close.They will need to move a few players on and freshen the team up. 

Well done TW, well deserved. As an ACFC fan I hoped we'd pip you at the end, but you played well through both legs and looked like you wanted it more.. Do us proud in the final ya?

Anybody at the game - Can you let us know what the big stoppage was to add the Refs time at the end?

wasn't at the game, but the stoppage time was for when Ross Allen elbowed Howieson in the head

I watched the replay last night and I'd be very surprised if there was 8 minutes of added time. There were two injury breaks and they didn't seem to be the equilvent of 5-6 minutes worth. 

Ramon's lost it? that's one of the funnier reactions I've seen to this result

So a manager of a team that has won the premiership, the championship, lost 2 games all season (one of which was because of messing up the registration of Le'alafa) and gone 14 games in a row without conceding a goal

The only player that he really missed that would have been in the team normally was Riera, but the way they played yesterday I doubt that would have made much difference.

Over the two games Team Wellington were the better team this time and deserved their win

Anyway, thought it was interesting that the first time ACFC are forced to play with fewer kiwis, was the first time they haven't won the title. Midfield three of OPP, Howieson and Drake is quite a drop off in quality from their usual Handy Prem side and the lack of steel (and consistent game time across the season) in there really showed. Whereas Teedubs had pretty much the same side across both competitions.

Especially when you consider that there 3 more minutes on top of the 8.

There was about 4 minutes for the Howieson injury,  add in 3 subs each thats another 3 mins so 7 mins + 1 the ref got from somewhere else

The 3 extra minutes at the end no idea where he got that from, only thing I could guess was the ref was getting annoyed with Mario Barcia continually berating him about how time should be up so he got stubborn and kept play going

Yeah but Barcia's berating started after 10 minutes of additional time had already been played, and it wasn't really adding any more time as it was happening in natural stoppages before ACFC were taking corners.

And the ref had started looking at his watch after about 8 and a half minutes of additional time were played, it was just bizarre that he kept the game going for almost 3 minutes after that.