The Wellington Phoenix are pushing for the top six after their third straight A-League win.
Photo: PHOTOSPORT
The Phoenix edged the newly crowned FFA Cup champions 1-0 in Wollongong, after a scoreless first-half.
Wellington playmaker Reno Piscopo scored the only goal of the game 16 minutes from fulltime to move the Phoenix just a point adrift of the top six.
It was Wellington’s first clean sheet of the A-League season and came in England defender Scott Wootton’s impressive debut.
The introduction of the experienced English defender was the one change coach Ufuk Talay made from the team’s last outing, with Wootton making his long-awaited first appearance for the Phoenix in place of Finn Surman at right centre back.
Phoenix head coach Ufuk Talay said he was impressed with Wooton’s performance.
“Look he did the simple things right and that’s all we needed him to do as a defender, to win the balls and find a team-mate in the same coloured jersey,” Talay said.
“We weren’t expecting him to play 90 minutes but because we had a lot of the ball I thought he didn’t have to do a lot of tracking and a lot of running towards his own goal which was good.”
The Phoenix started brightly and had the first opportunity of the match in the sixth minute when the lively Piscopo shot wide from distance.
Wellington goalkeeper Oli Sail was called into action for the first time in the 10th minute, punching strongly to clear the danger from a corner.
Sail had to make one more telling intervention before halftime in the 25th minute, when he did well to deal with an awkward deflected shot at his near post.
Moments later David Ball created an opportunity for himself but was unable to test Ivan Kelava in the Victory goal and had to settle for a corner.
Ball had arguably the Phoenix’s best chance of the first half from a corner, when he flicked a near-post header narrowly over Kelava’s goal 12 minutes from halftime.
The Phoenix got the breakthrough they were after in the 74th minute when Ball pounced on loose ball, drew in a couple of Victory defenders and Kelava before finding Piscopo, who buried the ball into the back of the net.
Jaushua Sotirio had an opportunity to seal the win nine minutes from full-time when he found some space in the Victory box, but Sotirio wasn’t able to curl his shot into the top corner of the visitors’ goal.
The Phoenix next play Adelaide United, who sit just a point about the Wellington side on the A-League ladder, and Talay is hoping to keep up the momentum.
“There were some good performances, Macarthur and this one. I thought we played very well with the ball and defended solidly as well,” Talay said.
-RNZ
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