Marked for Thomas Smith
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market20 Nov 2028
“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.
Player ratings20 Nov 2028
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad20 Nov 2028
Bill Tuiloma 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.
Match18 Nov 2028
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Match18 Nov 2028
Perth Glory left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad20 Nov 2028
“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 Wellington Phoenix know it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad25 Sep 2028
Bill Tuiloma 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.
Squad25 Sep 2028
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Wellington Phoenix are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Oscar Page knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Wellington Phoenix, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match11 Sep 2028
Position 10, 21 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Rafael Durán 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 Wellington Phoenix this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Thomas Smith is 17, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces29 May 2028
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Market29 May 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Wellington Phoenix can pretend not to have heard.
Squad29 May 2028
Rafael Durán 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.