In October 2024, the A-League Men will return for another campaign – and, with the recent release of the fixture list, the Wellington Phoenix now have a sense of how their 26 matchups this season will fall. With that, Front Page Football looks at the seven most mouth-watering fixtures for Nix fans in the 2024/25 season – and why you should be looking forward to them.
Wellington Phoenix head coach Giancarlo Italiano watches on during training. (Image: Photomac)
7. Macarthur FC vs Wellington Phoenix, 20 January (Campbelltown Sports Stadium, Campbelltown)
Even if the Phoenix’s recent away form is nothing like the team's shambolic record in the Ricki Herbert area, Wellington has not always travelled well. That said, the exceptions make the rule, and if there’s one place the Nix have rarely struggled on the road, it’s Macarthur.
In eight games at Campbelltown Stadium, the Phoenix have lost just two: drawing two and winning four times in Sydney’s outskirts. What’s more, Wellington has taken all three points in their last three meetings on Macarthur’s patch – scoring six and conceding just one – and you have to go back over a year and a half to 12 February 2023 for the last time the Nix were beaten away at Macarthur.
Add in the fact that Macarthur has a history of picking off players crucial to the Phoenix – notably, the acquisition of club captain Ulises Davila in 2021 and Clayton Lewis in 2023; former Nix shot-stopper Filip Kurto has also lined up for the Bulls for the last three seasons – and this fixture will always come with that added bit of spice.
6. Wellington Phoenix vs Perth Glory, 2 May (Sky Stadium, Wellington)
Ah, the Distance Derby – a footballing tussle defined, in the classic sense, by geographic proximity, but not in the conventional way. The 5,257 kilometres separating the two cities makes it one of – if not the – longest away day in the league. And, though this matchup will never reach the heights of the F3, Big Blue, or Sydney and Melbourne derbies, it has been the Phoenix’s only 'derby' for 17 years – so it will always have that extra ring of resonance (especially given Oli Sail’s defection to the Glory ahead of last season after 79 appearances in Phoenix colours).
As you would expect from a fixture requiring nine hours and 35 minutes of flight time, this one has historically gone the way of the home team. In Perth, the Nix have won just nine times in 26 games; in Wellington, the Phoenix have won 10 and drawn six in the same number of games.
Factor in the fixture’s significance as the Phoenix’s final game of the season – a match that consistently receives a decent fan turnout – and it is undoubtedly one Nix fans will already be eagerly circling in their yellow-and-black calendars.
5. Wellington Phoenix vs Melbourne Victory, 12 April (Sky Stadium, Wellington)
Given the Phoenix’s historically poor record against the Victory, the only more eyebrow-raising thing than the five times Wellington played Melbourne Victory last season was that the Phoenix only lost once. Yes, that loss may have come in the fifth and final game of that series, in the most heartbreaking circumstances, as Chris Ikonomidis turned in a 112th-minute corner to sink Wellington's hopes of a first-ever Grand Final.
But the Phoenix can at least take heart in the other four games, and the scenes – moments burned indelibly into the minds of Nix fans – they provided. There was Finn Surman’s 95th-minute header to win it in April—Alex Rufer’s 95th-minute penalty to snatch a point under the lights in January. A 1-1 draw scrapped out at AAMI Park (despite the Phoenix not registering a single shot on target). And, of course, that goal: a 99th-minute strike that, though it would prove Oskar Zawada’s final for the club and would end up failing to affect the final result, is no less memorable.
The fiery recent history between these two clubs should make for an entertaining contest when the clubs meet three times next season, with the Phoenix looking for revenge and the Victory looking potentially reinvigorated under the fresh stewardship of former Melbourne City boss Patrick Kisnorbo. This fixture – the third and final clash between the two sides in the 2024/25 regular season – will have seen them already trade blows home and away. This one has all the makings of a classic at a Sky Stadium that will be breathing fire in the crisp autumn air.
4. Melbourne City vs Wellington Phoenix, 3 January (AAMI Park, Melbourne)
If the Phoenix are to build on their scarcely believable second-place finish in 2023/24, they will have to do something they have failed to do for over seven years—win at AAMI Park.
Yes, it has been that long; in fact, the last time the Phoenix took three points at AAMI Park (shared by Melbourne Victory and Melbourne City), it was April 2017, and Shane Smeltz was on the scoresheet.
When Wellington takes on Aurelio Vidmar’s side in their first game of 2025, they will get their first opportunity of this campaign to overcome that hoodoo. If the Phoenix had won this fixture last season, they would have been crowned premiers; instead, they slumped to a 1-0 defeat after City centre-back Samuel Souprayen’s header found the net.
In January, the Phoenix will have a chance to put that demon – along with those accumulated throughout, by the time they take on City away from home, almost eight years of football – to bed.
3. Wellington Phoenix vs Western United, 20 October (Sky Stadium, Wellington)
Western United will always be one of those teams that those of a Phoenix persuasion love to hate. How can anyone forget, after all, when the expansion club pilfered then-Wellington boss Marko Rudan – who then proceeded to take Phoenix goalkeeper Kurto, star young player Max Burgess, and 273-game club captain and All White Andrew Durante with him?
Still, that perceived act of treachery has led to some fascinating contests over the years, most notably in May 2021, when Sky Stadium welcomed its team home for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic as the Phoenix dismantled their green-and-black opposition 3-0 in front of a bumper 24,105-strong partisan crowd (to this date, the Phoenix’s biggest regular season home crowd ever).
What’s more, the Phoenix has an excellent record against Western United, having won 10 and drawn one of the 14 matches the two sides have contested across the A-League Men and Australia Cup.
That record – and the aforementioned historical grudge that exists – should make this one a mouth-watering contest. Combine that with the fact that this game comes at Sky Stadium, and as the curtain-raiser to 2024/25, it should kick off the Phoenix’s new season with a bang.
2. Central Coast Mariners vs Wellington Phoenix, 10 November (Industree Group Stadium, Gosford)
Arguably, the Phoenix’s first big test of the season comes in their fourth game against a familiar opponent, when Giancarlo Italiano’s side takes on the Central Coast Mariners in Gosford.
The team that pipped the Phoenix to the minor premiership last season by two points – gained by Mikael Doka’s late strike in this exact fixture last season, which handed the Mariners a 2-1 victory – should be strong again.
And, while it remains to be seen whether the Phoenix can maintain the intensity and tactical acumen we saw from them in 2023/24, this fixture should still be loaded with all the verve and venom we have come to expect from these two sides over the past year.
1. Wellington Phoenix vs Auckland FC, 2 November (Sky Stadium, Wellington)
When Alex Paulsen, hero of the Phoenix’s 2023/24 campaign, left for English Premier League side Bournemouth in July, fans could just about accept it.
The Kiwi – who recently represented New Zealand at the Paris 2024 Olympics – was coming off the back of a breakthrough season between the sticks, having saved three penalties and conceding just 26 goals: the lowest in the league.
Then, in August, Phoenix’s fans’ worst nightmare came to fruition, as Paulsen was loaned to Auckland FC – the A-Leagues newbies owned by American investor Bill Foley, who also owns Bournemouth – for the 2024/25 season, which will be the Auckland outfit’s first (the move is subject to Football Australia approving amendments to the A-Leagues Player Contract Regulations).
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It is a gutting blow and will only serve to create a crushing, cauldron-like atmosphere when the black-and-blue side comes to Wellington for a spectacular showpiece event: the first iteration of the New Zealand Derby (a catchier name is, hopefully, incoming).
Paulsen’s return is just one of the subplots set to dominate the pre-match discourse. Callan Elliot returns after coming through the Wellington Phoenix Reserves before making 43 appearances in the Phoenix defence across two separate stints at the club. Jake Brimmer was the attacking midfielder last seen at Sky Stadium in May who whipped in the corner for Ikonomidis to shoot down the Phoenix’s lofty Grand Final ambitions. And former Phoenix midfielder Luis Toomey, who will return to Wellington in opposition colours.
If all that wasn’t enough, the fixture arrives just three games into the 2024/25 campaign – meaning both sides will be desperate to gain the invaluable traction of some early-season form. The fixture has all the trimmings of a tussle for our times – and is the first of a two-parter that will see the Phoenix travel to Auckland’s Go Media Stadium in February.
Keep your TV tuned and your popcorn ready. This game is one you won't want to miss!
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