Editorial: Football's golden run

OPINION: It gets tougher from here.

A trip to Sydney at the weekend and, if that foray across the Tasman should prove successful, another one a week later, this time to Melbourne, where the ultimate prize in Australasian club soccer will be up for grabs.

But the fact that the Wellington Phoenix are even in this position is, in itself, cause for huge celebration up and down the length of this country.

Even if the journey ends in Sydney on Saturday, it will still be a successful one. For a New Zealand franchise in the Australian Football League to stand one win away from the grand final shouldn't be referred to as anything other than a triumph.

Plainly, though, the team will not be thinking that way. Manager Ricki Herbert, who has experienced a heady few months at the helm of not only the Phoenix but also the All Whites, would simply not allow it. But then he probably doesn't have too much to worry about, given the passion his Phoenix side have competed with at the business end of the A-League season.

The character of the team is summed up in the fact that four All Whites players who only arrived back on New Zealand soil on Saturday morning from Los Angeles, started the game, and three got through the full 120 minutes of regular and extra time. So Sydney FC, the A-League minor premiers, will do well to approach Saturday's all-or-nothing affair with a healthy dose of caution.

Of course, this is not just a Wellington story. It's a New Zealand story and it represents a remarkable turnaround as far as professional soccer in New Zealand is concerned.

Ardent fans of the sport will well remember the desparate circumstances out of which the Wellington-based franchise arose just a few short seasons ago. At the end of 2006, it seemed there was every chance New Zealand soccer would be taken back a significant step as the licence to play in the A-League held by the Auckland-based New Zealand Knights was revoked following a string of poor attendances at the club's home games.

There was concern the licence would go to another Australian club, with several keen to take the Knights' place, and it was only the emergence of a bid from Wellington, fronted by businessman Terry Serepisos, that ensured New Zealand continued to have a franchise in the competition.

It hasn't been all beer and skittles from day one, but in the Phoenix's three seasons, their league position has improved from eighth to sixth to this campaign's fourth, putting the team into the play-offs and, after two tense victories, one step from the final. And attendances are soaring, to nearly 33,000 on Sunday.

It really is a fairytale turnaround and hopefully there are at least two more chapters to be written this season.

- © Fairfax NZ News