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Wel­ling­ton Phoenix 3 Sydney FC 0

The Phoenix made a lot of friends on Sunday after­noon with a con­fid­ent dis­play against an out of sorts Sydney side. Rarely troubled at the back, show­ing good enter­prise and pace going for­ward, and superbly mar­shalled by the exper­i­enced Ross Aloisi in cent­ral mid­field, the Phoenix looked bet­ter than both the Rufer-era Kingz and the woe­ful Knights put togeth­er.

The offi­cial attend­ance was just over 6,000 (which is sen­sa­tion­al for a pre-sea­son match) and the organ­isers sens­ibly stuck us all on one side of the ground to help har­ness the atmo­sphere. The offi­cial site has yet to be updated with the res­ult and Stuff don’t have a match report so I’ll tell you that there were two goals for Shane Smeltz plus an own goal from an unknown Sydney play­er.

The Brazili­an num­ber 4 Cleber­son is going to be a def­in­ite crowd favour­ite – he’s a big lump of a bloke and he totally bossed the cent­ral defence, win­ning everything in the air – and com­pat­ri­ot Cor­tes looked pretty lively down the right wing.

Phoenix match tick­ets go on sale on August 13 and I’d recom­mend get­ting into them early, par­tic­u­larly as more than half the games are kid-friendly Sunday after­noon affairs and it won’t stay this cold forever.