Auckland Pride - Make Auckland Great Again

Crikey straight into fielding a pretty strong lineup. Apparently they want to have a serious crack at winning the Australia Cup.

https://www.friendsoffootballnz.com/2025/07/23/auckland-fc-beat-west-coast-rangers-in-their-first-pre-season-friendly/

Auckland FC’s men’s A-League squad have won their first pre-season friendly 5-0 against Dettol Northern League side West Coast Rangers.

Played under lights at Whenuapai’s Fred Taylor Park, Auckland FC went to a 3-0 half-time lead before completing the victory with goals from Marlee François, and All Whites Jesse Randall (2), Logan Rogerson and Cam Howieson.

Starting line-up

Michael Woud, Hiroki Sakai, Nando Pijnaker, Dan Hall, Francis de Vries, Luis Felipe Gallegos, Cam Howieson, Marlee François, Logan Rogerson, Jesse Randall, Guillermo May.

Substitutes: Eli Jones, Callum Elliot, Finn McKenlay, Coulibaly, Oli Middleton, Jake Brimmer, Jonty Bidois, Semi Nabenu.

Auckland FC’s first fully competitive match is their Round of 32 Australia Cup tie against the Gold Coast Knights, to be played on Tuesday July 29, 2025.

Lol. Feel kinda angry about them being out west. Maybe that’s a hang up from the old Auckland City rivalry or that there’s not an ounce of westie anywhere in any of their thinking or symbols. They’re all Sacred Heart and Ellerslie I believe? And their Aussies ex-blingers. 

Still you get that far west and north you almost end up on the north shore these days…

RR

All access. All action. All drama  🎬

Sky NZ Originals docuseries Forever Auckland FC premiers Wednesday, 27 August across Sky platforms! pic.twitter.com/wpfKbEF6IJ

— Auckland FC (@fc_auckland) July 23, 2025

Reckon it'll be about as interesting as the rugby behind the scenes stuff Sky are doing. A seasons of doing all the things right, getting all the success until the last match - boring. No real controversy, no ownership issues to speak off.

lol, I’m figuring you for a MAFs or Love Island fan 

Dealing with JOWIC might be interesting. The derby build ups 

theprof

RR

All access. All action. All drama  🎬

Sky NZ Originals docuseries Forever Auckland FC premiers Wednesday, 27 August across Sky platforms! pic.twitter.com/wpfKbEF6IJ

— Auckland FC (@fc_auckland) July 23, 2025

Reckon it'll be about as interesting as the rugby behind the scenes stuff Sky are doing. A seasons of doing all the things right, getting all the success until the last match - boring. No real controversy, no ownership issues to speak off.

Yeah the only time these are remotely interesting is when the club is a basket case e.g Sunderland till I die.

The Sunderland doco was made at the perfect time, before owners really realised the impact a show like that could have and ultimately didn't think too much of it.

Nowadays, the productions are very much driven by marketing teams. And no professional outfit is going to risk a player, coach, or staff member saying something cancellable... so are always going to maintain full editorial control.

AucklandPhoenix

lol, I’m figuring you for a MAFs or Love Island fan 

yeah I'm the target audience for that fluff!

Buffon II

theprof

RR

All access. All action. All drama  🎬

Sky NZ Originals docuseries Forever Auckland FC premiers Wednesday, 27 August across Sky platforms! pic.twitter.com/wpfKbEF6IJ

— Auckland FC (@fc_auckland) July 23, 2025

Reckon it'll be about as interesting as the rugby behind the scenes stuff Sky are doing. A seasons of doing all the things right, getting all the success until the last match - boring. No real controversy, no ownership issues to speak off.

Yeah the only time these are remotely interesting is when the club is a basket case e.g Sunderland till I die.

Or actually have some history behind them, like Wrexham, the doco can actualy focus on the journey the club has been on for 100+ years rather than just covering what has already been well publicised and convered for a single season.

No interest in seeing a minute of this because:

a) As a nix fan I don't want to think about any of the derbies and don't care particularly for watching a slow mo replay with dramatic music of Olu stinking it up late on in the first one, nor the demolition either.
b) They'll almost certainly be painted as plucky underdogs despite that not at all being the case
c) fudge em 

Jazzy Jeff

No interest in seeing a minute of this because:

a) As a nix fan I don't want to think about any of the derbies and don't care particularly for watching a slow mo replay with dramatic music of Olu stinking it up late on in the first one, nor the demolition either.
b) They'll almost certainly be painted as plucky underdogs despite that not at all being the case
c) fudge em 

not at all interested in seeing Danny Hay getting cards?  I'm frothing just for that bit alone.

chopah

Jazzy Jeff

No interest in seeing a minute of this because:

a) As a nix fan I don't want to think about any of the derbies and don't care particularly for watching a slow mo replay with dramatic music of Olu stinking it up late on in the first one, nor the demolition either.
b) They'll almost certainly be painted as plucky underdogs despite that not at all being the case
c) fudge em 

not at all interested in seeing Danny Hay getting cards?  I'm frothing just for that bit alone.

I highly doubt you'll see any of that kind of stuff. It'll be a total AFC hype piece.

Even though I know you don’t want to, watch the intro in the link above TheProf.

AucklandPhoenix

Even though I know you don’t want to, watch the intro in the link above TheProf.

Im hesitant to do this, cos then I might actually want to watch the rest.

It will make your blood boil, professor.

No chance. 

AucklandPhoenix

It will make your blood boil, professor.

No chance. 

Just watching that clip says it all, good, bad and ugly! good is easy! bad - on no Sakai takes a hit to the head, and then the ugly!!!! lol boohoo the YF called me a wanker!
self serving rubbish. surprised mowbray was saying how sorry she felt for Paulsen cos he's only young.

theprof

chopah

Jazzy Jeff

No interest in seeing a minute of this because:

a) As a nix fan I don't want to think about any of the derbies and don't care particularly for watching a slow mo replay with dramatic music of Olu stinking it up late on in the first one, nor the demolition either.
b) They'll almost certainly be painted as plucky underdogs despite that not at all being the case
c) fudge em 

not at all interested in seeing Danny Hay getting cards?  I'm frothing just for that bit alone.

I highly doubt you'll see any of that kind of stuff. It'll be a total AFC hype piece.

I mean all doco's about clubs are at some level hype pieces - and being a rival I can see why you would be against it but as a football fan I would want to see it - I am a liverpool fan as well and I have watched Utd, City, Arsenal doco's.

theprof

AucklandPhoenix

It will make your blood boil, professor.

No chance. 

Just watching that clip says it all, good, bad and ugly! good is easy! bad - on no Sakai takes a hit to the head, and then the ugly!!!! lol boohoo the YF called me a wanker!
self serving rubbish. surprised mowbray was saying how sorry she felt for Paulsen cos he's only young.

From that brief video, all I can say is that I hope Paulsen develops a thicker skin playing in Europe. 

Being called a wanker? 🤷‍♂️ 🤔
Jeez that feels like a pretty light day to be honest.

Yes the away ultras at any European game make ALM fans look like kittens.

But even your home supporters can be brutal. Cue the out pouring of hate on Marinovic when he had his one & done at Bristol City.

The Woodsman tells of a semi amusing tale at Leeds when even though he had a 30+ goal season there, a nutter 'fan' at Elland Road would constantly every home game chase him to the players tunnel, saying how shark CW was. AP will indeed need to grow a thick skin, esp when he does inevitably have a bad game in goal up north.

From stuff

Coach Steve Corica confirmed they are after a striker, a winger and a centre back – to replace departed veteran Tommy Smith – and said they were close to making two of those three signings.

theprof

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/360770342/auckland-fc-confirm-they-wont-be-joining-league-women-season

And a slightly more opinionated piece from RNZ:

The Stuff article us just a rehash of whats already known. The A League us in serious financial trouble. I suspect further cuts are coming.
Business 101. In times of trouble revert to your core revenue business. The A Leagues core business is the mens senior comp. Thats where they earn their money. The womens league is a cost. Nice to have but still a cost. 
Sound business would be to park it up until the mens game is stabilised.

Because the ALM will never be "stabilised", or you can always say it's not stable enough, this is a call for the ALW to be "parked up" forever. And of course we live in an "anti-woke" era where it will be politically correct to no longer support women's sport (except to the extent where it can be used to punish a minority group)

I mean, even putting the crap reduced distribution to one side both from a business and football point of view, it makes sense to take this football project in incremental stages:

1: Season 1: Focus on setting up the club which will have high set up costs and they really need emphasis on the men’s team to get the crowds in the door and the bandwagon started.That’s been achieved.

2: Season 2. Consolidate the first team and then we have this curve ball of the OFC professional team, which will take a lot of unexpected time, resources and cost.

3: Season 3, is the time to think about the woman’s team, once the men’s first team and OFC are embedded.

YoungHeartHM

theprof

AucklandPhoenix

It will make your blood boil, professor.

No chance. 

Just watching that clip says it all, good, bad and ugly! good is easy! bad - on no Sakai takes a hit to the head, and then the ugly!!!! lol boohoo the YF called me a wanker!
self serving rubbish. surprised mowbray was saying how sorry she felt for Paulsen cos he's only young.

From that brief video, all I can say is that I hope Paulsen develops a thicker skin playing in Europe. 

Being called a wanker? 🤷‍♂️ 🤔
Jeez that feels like a pretty light day to be honest.

If he’s pulled off a betrayal that spectacular and then the whole drama focuses on him being called a wanker…well he is a wanker and deserves to have his career shaped by Becker, McFlynn and Corica. 

So far his sojourn in Europe is proving as rewarding as Sarpreet’s, if not a little less even. Remember Sarpreet played pre-season for Bayern v Arsenal. I guess a keeper will have a longer career though…

austin111

The Stuff article us just a rehash of whats already known. The A League us in serious financial trouble. I suspect further cuts are coming.
Business 101. In times of trouble revert to your core revenue business. The A Leagues core business is the mens senior comp. Thats where they earn their money. The womens league is a cost. Nice to have but still a cost. 
Sound business would be to park it up until the mens game is stabilised.

You’ve said this a couple of times. And both times it’s retrograde bullshark. 

Firstly, the men’s game is never stabilised and has scarcely been a business. The revenue earning parts are faltering. Particularly cable TV. That was the model that worked, along with milking the Lowy family fortune. 

The A league as a product is saddled with clubs that don’t have sufficient fans to justify their spending, yet the spending continues and the fans don’t materialise. MacArthur and WU. 

The idea of a niche pay per view scheme sees good one, that no one had confidence in. And, as I mentioned above it’s a vicious circle. The product is poor, so we don’t get subscribers and the product quality gets worse with no cash. 

The biggest challenge is crawling to the Victory fans and begging them to come back imo. 

But there is no business model essentially, unless fan numbers and watch numbers go up. Townsend had a good idea, but it needed buy in and a better product. And even then. Internationally a lot of non-premier league broadcast is Saudi funded. There isn’t much of a business case for football in general. Small clubs dream of wealthy owners, not stable business turnover.

Perhaps the women’s game needs a separate entity so it is only mired in its own problems. This is happening at some clubs internationally.

But to say as you are that the women should sacrifice their game for the sake of the men and because of the economy and the growth and business, is offensive sexist dinosaur crap, mixed in with lazy INEOS garbage. 

Surely the women’s game allows some economies of scale in travel and advertising, and creating generational football families?

And sure there’s a difference between setting up a team and dismantling existing structures…

If you want to say this:
As a result, on 5 December 1921, the FA imposed a ban on women's football, stating that "the game of football is quite unsuitable for females and should not be encouraged"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bans_of_women%27s_association_football

(Which places the FA in this article next to free societies like the Soviet Union and Afghanistan. )

don’t start with BS waffle about core business, just say you don’t want a women’s team and won’t go to a single game.

Here’s what Christchurch thought then:

‘According to Christchurch newspaper The Star in 1922, the head of the Canterbury Football Association stated that "the men in England had tried to stop the ladies from playing soccer for the simple reason that it affected their gate takings."’

Or perhaps try the other route, and feign concern about ACL injuries while going down the Spain/Yugoslavia path - woman are too dainty to play.

Football ‘demanded qualities that were diametrically opposed to those of women’s bodily constitution.’ according to the Spanish.

If you’re proposing an economy where wealth is distributed so the lower and middle classes don’t need two income streams to live and most businesses are shut on Sundays to allow for rest and football, well perhaps that’s the start of a conversation though! 

Focus on core business, creating income for consumers and time for families to enjoy their consumer products. Right? Or we’re playing first abolish the customer yeh? Can’t have a stadium full of Mowbrays, though one or two is helpful…

AucklandPhoenix

I mean, even putting the crap reduced distribution to one side both from a business and football point of view, it makes sense to take this football project in incremental stages:

1: Season 1: Focus on setting up the club which will have high set up costs and they really need emphasis on the men’s team to get the crowds in the door and the bandwagon started.That’s been achieved.

2: Season 2. Consolidate the first team and then we have this curve ball of the OFC professional team, which will take a lot of unexpected time, resources and cost.

3: Season 3, is the time to think about the woman’s team, once the men’s first team and OFC are embedded.

I struggle to believe that the bandwagon effect will result in decent crowds for the women's team.

“The game of football is quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged.”

I’d always wondered where that line in the WWC promo video came from (source, since it was slightly misquoted on Wikipedia).

Wow martinb i could be wrong but think you have take austin111s post to mean way more than he ever  intended.

The next A League broadcast deal will be better.

The A League viewer numbers are steadily going up. Yes it would be nice to have more bums on seats, but it's eyes on screens where the money is.

I imagine SKY will have to up their bid considerably next time to get coverage with Auckland doing so well, which will help.

Viewer numbers are up, player sales and fees are up, Nz and Aus footy doing OK internationally at the moment. 

Only naysayers can't see the positive progress happening.

The last deal with Paramount was signed in the dark days of Covid. 
Yes the new deal with whoever next year will be improved.

If Sky has reportedly lost 2026 World Cup hosting rights to TVNZ, then maybe TVNZ might consider a cheeky bid for A-League rights?

We can only hope.

Personally I would be quite happy to see SKY lose the WC. They have screwed football for years in terms of coverage etc... literally have done nothing to grow the game or help it succeed.

I understand it's not their job to, but if this helps them start looking at it more seriously, then brilliant.

Wow! Martinb, you seem to haven take offense at my comment on the business viability of the A League. My post was in no way intended as an attack on woman’s football. I would just like to go on record to say that the growth in professional woman’s football has been one of the best things that has happened to the game in recent years. I am currently enjoying the women’s Euro comp. It has offered as good a spectacle you could ever want to see in a football stadium.
My point was with the current state of the A League finances that woman’s football could go, not SHOULD go. There’s a big difference. 
As someone who has been involved in international business for 30 years it has always stunned me that football seems to think it can operate outside normal business practices. The bottom line is if you can’t pay for it then you can’t have it.
The A League is close to a tipping point and we can only speculate on its future. It’s absolutely essential it gets its house in order. With the renegotiation of the TV deal maybe we may look forward to better times. Or we could end up with a low budget, low wage version played in suburban grounds.
The woman’s game could be a victim of chronic mismanagement. That would be a tragedy and a great loss for all of us who love the game.

ballane

Wow martinb i could be wrong but think you have take austin111s post to mean way more than he ever  intended.

Not really. 
Men’s= core business 
Women’s = dispensable cost/a nice to have 

Distilled BS.

austin111

Wow! Martinb, you seem to haven take offense at my comment on the business viability of the A League. My post was in no way intended as an attack on woman’s football. I would just like to go on record to say that the growth in professional woman’s football has been one of the best things that has happened to the game in recent years. I am currently enjoying the women’s Euro comp. It has offered as good a spectacle you could ever want to see in a football stadium.
My point was with the current state of the A League finances that woman’s football could go, not SHOULD go. There’s a big difference. 
As someone who has been involved in international business for 30 years it has always stunned me that football seems to think it can operate outside normal business practices. The bottom line is if you can’t pay for it then you can’t have it.
The A League is close to a tipping point and we can only speculate on its future. It’s absolutely essential it gets its house in order. With the renegotiation of the TV deal maybe we may look forward to better times. Or we could end up with a low budget, low wage version played in suburban grounds.
The woman’s game could be a victim of chronic mismanagement. That would be a tragedy and a great loss for all of us who love the game.

So your thought process- the men’s game is a mess, better bench the women’s game? No, you’re saying it could go. Not your thoughts, some hypothetical nameless management figure. 

I mean I don’t know what kind of folk run the APL. 

But I certainly don’t consider the Men’s the ‘core’ business. Hopefully the APL don’t see it that way either. Hopefully they’re football people, not INEOS. 

I mean what can be done? Either to stabilise things or to ring fence the women’s competition and protect it?

Would NZF be better off contributing to the Auckland FC womens travel costs (and the Nix in equal share) if that is the stumbling block rather than whatever they are putting into the 9 team South Island Womens League.  Would that money be better spent on the top 32 players in the country to help them cross the Tasman for 26 weeks rather than the top 144 players in the South Island fly around Christchurch, Dunedin, Nelson for 18 weeks.