Marinovic safe pair of hands for Phoenix
Wellington Phoenix celebrated like they had just scored a goal when Stefan Marinovic stuck his leg out to deny Kaine Sheppard from point blank range.
The ball was still in play but captain Steven Taylor sprinted over to embrace the brawny goalkeeper after he pulled off one of the saves of his career to salvage a narrow A-League win over the last-placed Newcastle Jets.
Clinching his fists and letting out a passionate scream, Marinovic was then swarmed by team-mates Luke DeVere and Te Atawhai Hudson-Wihongi following his stoppage time heroics.
‘‘They’re great for us,’’ Phoenix goalkeeping coach Paul Gothard said. ‘‘They’re like scoring a goal. It’s that sort of feeling.
‘‘After Stef made that last save, the players went over and congratulated him because they know he’s made an impact there. Filip [Kurto] was the same last season, a good goalkeeper is worth a good 10-15 points throughout the season.
‘‘He’s consistently making those sort of saves in those big games but that one in that stage of the game, and how the game had gone, it was so important.
‘‘That’s one we talk about, how you get your body across to it. Stef is very good at standing up and holding his position for as long as possible, so he reacts very well to those sort of ones.’’
Replacing last season’s goalkeeper of the year, Marinovic had big boots to fill when he joined the Phoenix following an unsuccessful spell at Championship side Bristol City in England.
But he has shown throughout the first 15 games that he is just as good, if not better, than Kurto, who followed former coach Mark Rudan to Western United.
Marinovic has been one of the signings of the A-League season, pulling off 51 saves including three crucial stops in a man of the match performance against the Jets.
‘‘With Stef’s overall game, he’s a better goalkeeper than Filip,’’ Gothard admitted.
‘‘But ultimately their job is to stop the ball going into the back of the net and if you get the goalkeepers to play to their strengths then you get the best of them and I think Filip at the moment is being asked to do things that aren’t his strengths at Western United which is leading to him being a bit inconsistent, which is a shame because he’s a top, top man as well.’’
But it is not just on the pitch that Marinovic is soaring.
Gothard said the 28-year-old was also a trained pilot who spent his days off flying around the country.
Although he is yet to go up in the plane with Marinovic, the Aucklander promised to take Gothard and the other goalkeepers on an end-of-season jaunt.
‘‘Oli [Sail] wants to go to Bali but I think that’s a bit too far,’’ he joked.
‘‘There’s a few players in the changing room that I probably wouldn’t trust to fly me around but Stef isn’t one of those. I’d do all right with him.’’
Gothard first worked with Marinovic in his previous role as All Whites goalkeeping coach in 2015. Wanting to test the depth behind incumbent Glen Moss, he came up with a list of former agegroup representatives and reached out to each one.
Marinovic immediately stood out. He was playing out of the spotlight at SpVgg Unterhaching in Germany’s 3.Liga.
‘‘The aim was to find goalkeepers so I went back through the under-20s and under23s and spoke to all of those goalkeepers to see which ones still had the desire and which ones were still playing.
‘‘I reached out to Stef and the first conversation I had was quite interesting because I think he was waiting for the call. He was ready, he had been playing in Germany but he was disappointed that he wasn’t involved in the London Olympics.
‘‘He thought after finishing the
Under-20 World Cup he did well but he never got a call-up for that Olympic side.’’
Given the nod ahead of Max Crocombe, Marinovic endured a busy debut, conceding a penalty. But he made up for it by saving Son Heung-min’s spot kick.
He clearly made a good impression, going on to play the next 23 games under Anthony Hudson, through to the World Cup qualifiers against Peru.
‘‘That Korea game we had Max Crocombe, who I knew from the under-20s, and Stef, and Stef played and made a string of saves and a penalty save. We thought this is the guy we want.
‘‘We had other others but Stef was our No 1 and ended up playing 24 games consecutively, which is a record for the All Whites.
‘‘His big strengths are that he’s very safe,’’ Gothard said. ‘‘You wouldn’t see him do something that is normally out of character. He can make big saves consistently.
‘‘Our ideal for a goalkeeper for the Phoenix is someone who has a presence, someone who knows the gameplan, someone who is a winner and someone that can actually make those big saves when called upon.’’