Marked for Itumeleng Mkhize
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings11 Mar 2030
Successful dribbles: 25. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Match9 Mar 2030
Still nobody has beaten Auckland FC
The unbeaten run reaches 8. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad11 Mar 2030
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Auckland FC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout11 Mar 2030
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad11 Mar 2030
Words at Auckland FC training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Reagan Ogle is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad11 Mar 2030
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Auckland FC know it.
The dugout11 Mar 2030
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout11 Mar 2030
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
The dugout11 Mar 2030
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match31 Dec 2029
Auckland FC refuse to drop out of the race
Position 2, 19 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Player ratings31 Dec 2029
Successful dribbles: 30. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad31 Dec 2029
Louis Verstraete was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad31 Dec 2029
Jesse Randall falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match31 Dec 2029
Half the programme played, position 2, 19 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
Player ratings31 Dec 2029
Marked 7.73 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Auckland FC had the best player on the pitch.
Squad31 Dec 2029
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Auckland FC know it.
The dugout31 Dec 2029
Paulo Retre gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout31 Dec 2029
Lachlan Brook has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Auckland FC will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout5 Nov 2029
Luka Vicelich: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Auckland FC have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings5 Nov 2029
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.85 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad5 Nov 2029
Louis Verstraete was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Match3 Nov 2029
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Lachlan Brook. 2‑0 against Wellington Phoenix, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings5 Nov 2029
Ninety minutes of Lachlan Brook at his very best
Marked 8.37. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Auckland FC.
Squad5 Nov 2029
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lachlan Bayliss was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings5 Nov 2029
A performance of 8.01 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings5 Nov 2029
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad5 Nov 2029
A place in the month's best eleven for Oliver Sail
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Oliver Sail has come out of that comparison in the side, and Auckland FC have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout1 Oct 2029
James Durrington: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Auckland FC have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad1 Oct 2029
Wataru Kamijo is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad1 Oct 2029
Louis Verstraete and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad1 Oct 2029
Jesse Randall falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The dugout1 Oct 2029
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Lachlan Bayliss, and the manager let it.
The dugout1 Oct 2029
Lachlan Brook has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Auckland FC will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad17 Sep 2029
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Auckland FC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Sep 2029
Words at Auckland FC training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jesse Randall is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The dugout17 Sep 2029
Francis De Vries has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Auckland FC will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The dugout17 Sep 2029
The manager makes an example of Wataru Kamijo
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad17 Sep 2029
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Auckland FC are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Market17 Sep 2029
The name of Louis Verstraete keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Auckland FC say nothing, which says plenty.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad10 Sep 2029
Louis Verstraete was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad10 Sep 2029
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jesse Randall was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad10 Sep 2029
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Market10 Sep 2029
Signings arrive with a picture of the club in their head, and this one’s picture was bigger than the building. He will play well and he will be gone, in that order, and everybody knows it.
Market10 Sep 2029
Itumeleng Mkhize is 20, and Auckland FC have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Squad10 Sep 2029
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Itumeleng Mkhize commits to Auckland FC for another 3 years.
The dugout10 Sep 2029
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout10 Sep 2029
Wataru Kamijo knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Wataru Kamijo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Boardroom10 Sep 2029
The Auckland FC production line keeps running
23 graduates out of an academy now rated 7 out of 20. Clubs this size survive on exactly that, and the town knows every name.