The Team Wellington Gazette
Squad26 Oct 2026
A fracture rules Sam Stamatelopoulos out for 76 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Team Wellington will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market26 Oct 2026
Kosta Barbarouses asks to leave Team Wellington
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Kosta Stamatelopoulos is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 15 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Ryan Boxall in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Team Wellington this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Chris Nelson 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 terraces26 Oct 2026
The crowd has taken to Oliver Cacace
At 15 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
In brief
- Match Team Wellington get the job done against Auckland City
- Player ratings An afternoon Deklan Lewis will want back
- Player ratings Tim Lewis runs at them all day