‘‘When you are the man, you are the man. But when you’re not, you’re not.’’
Phoenix keeper Keegan Smith recalls surprise callup
Three years ago, 18- year- old Keegan Smith was plucked from relative obscurity to become the starting goalkeeper for Wellington Phoenix.
But despite signing a three-year contract after his fifth professional game, Smith’s time in the spotlight was fleeting.
He was taken out of the team following a 5-2 win over Perth Glory – the Phoenix’s first win under coach Darije Kalezic – and never played another game in the A-League. When Smith reported for pre-season training ahead of the 2018- 19 season, he was asked to train with the reserves. A few weeks later his contract was terminated.
It was a brutal introduction to the harsh realities of professional sport for a footballer who had experienced only a handful of senior games prior to his A-League debut.
‘‘ To be honest it was a pretty hectic time in my life. As a young footballer who had never really been top of the class or really all that great, I came down to Wellington just after my 17th birthday and moved in with a homestay . . . and long story short I ended up playing for the first team and it was just the most rapid progression you can ever imagine,’’ Smith said.
‘‘I think I had only played one national league game in New Zealand and a handful of Central League games, and I was playing in the A-League for the Phoenix. If you put that into a bigger picture, Sam Sutton had played four or five seasons at national league level before he got into the first team. The contrast that is pretty nuts. But the way I look back on it, it’s all good memories really.
‘‘ It was tough at the time, because you never really had a chance to sit back and soak it all in because you’re dealing with it as it comes, but looking back now I wouldn’t trade those experiences for the world.’’
The Phoenix had farewelled All Whites veteran Glen Moss at the end of the 2016-17 season and it was predicted that Lewis Italiano, Moss’s back-up over the previous two seasons, would finally get a chance to start after making just six appearances for the club.
However, the uncontracted Smith shot to the front of the queue in preseason, also preferred ahead of Oli Sail, because Kalezic thought he was better with the ball at his feet.
‘‘As a club we are facing a new page, a new way of playing, we want to go in another direction,’’ Kalezic said at the time.
Kalezic’s decision came as a surprise to many, including Smith. Italiano had been sidelined by a minor injury and Sail was away on international duty, so it was left to the academy goalkeeper to play their first pre-season friendly against a Central League selection.
‘‘I had only trained with the first team maybe four or five times before that but went in and played quite well,’’ Smith said.
‘‘It was Darije’s first game in charge at the Phoenix and that put me in a good stead. ‘‘The first team went away to Australia and they only took Lewis and Oli, but they came back and Darije was still undecided as to which goalkeeper would start the first game of the season.
‘‘The goalkeeping coach at the time, he was relaying that information to me, and we ended up playing Team Wellington at Westpac Stadium and won 8-1. I made a mistake early but managed to come back from it, and the following week we played against Auckland City and we drew 2-2.
‘‘It sort of looked like the starting team for the following week because the All Whites had to play Peru the following week so those boys weren’t up for selection and they played in the second team and I was in the first team. That’s when it started to dawn on me.’’
Smith said he was informed by Kalezic at training on Monday that he would be starting against Adelaide United but Kalezic only made his bold plan public at a press conference on Saturday, one day before the game.
‘‘ I just tried to play it as cool as possible. When he told me I was just like ‘oh well, it’s just another game, I’ve been in this environment for a couple of weeks now, so I’ll be fine’. My mum always said to me ‘fake it till you make it’ so that’s what I tried to do. I just bowled in with a whole bunch of confidence.’’
The Phoenix drew their first game with Smith in goal 1-1.
Smith was just a student at Scots College at the time, and said it was a fairly strange experience to be playing in front of crowds of around 10,000 people one day and then attending secondary school the next.
‘‘I played away to Sydney FC and Melbourne City in my second and third games, and against Sydney there would’ve been around 14,000 people there, and I still had to go back to school on the following Tuesday.’’
The Phoenix went winless in their first five games and conceded 11 goals during that
‘‘I had only trained with the first team maybe four or five times but went in and played quite well.’’
period, increasing the pressure on Kalezic. But a few days after Smith had signed a three-year contract, they broke their drought by hammering Perth Glory 5-2 at home.
He did not know at the time, but that would be Smith’s final act for the Phoenix. He was replaced by Italiano the following week and didn’t feature again for the rest of the season, with Tando Velaphi brought in from overseas, before Sail finished out the campaign.
Kalezic indicated that it was Smith’s decision to come out of the starting XI. He said the player was not feeling 100 per cent. However, according to Smith, that was not exactly true.
‘‘I didn’t ask to come out,’’ Smith said.
‘‘But I just think Darije was trying to protect me at the time.
‘‘There was a lot of pressure coming from all angles, not only on me as the goalkeeper, but the team because of the results we had been getting.
‘‘Admittedly
I thought we had been playing some nice football but the results hadn’t quite come, but I think they decided to chuck Lewis in to get some more experience at a time when they thought it might help out.’’
Excited to continue his development in a professional environment, Smith reported for pre-season training ahead of the 2018-19, but he quickly realised that he was not part of new coach Mark Rudan’s plans. Polish goalkeeper Filip Kurto was brought in to be the No 1 ahead of Sail, and Smith was asked to train with the reserves, before being told he had no future at the Phoenix.
‘‘It’s the nature of professional sport. When you are the man, you are the man. But when you’re not, you’re not,’’ Smith said.
‘‘ To go from playing in games and being ‘the kid’ to 12 months later being told to train on the side, train on the reserves, as opposed to training with the first team, it was tough to take.’’
Now 21, Smith is currently playing for Team Wellington and works as a teacher aide at Rongotai College.
He has not given up on his dream of playing professional football again and hoped, with the help of his Irish passport, that he might get a chance there.
‘‘ I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to be playing pro right now.
‘‘ It is tough to go from a professional environment to a non- professional environment, but if you look at my playing career over the past two years I haven’t played a lot of football for a variety of reasons.
‘‘So it is quite tough to go to clubs with a good bank of footage and say this is what I look like now after playing for the Phoenix ... because I don’t exactly have that backlog of games that many other players do.
‘‘I felt the experience I had at the Phoenix was a beneficial one but if I was to get another run at another professional environment I would be 100 times wiser to everything on and off the field. It would be a different kettle of fish.’’
For now though, Smith is enjoying the Team Wellington environment and is pushing captain Scott Basalaj for the starting spot. ‘‘ I think competition brings the best out of everyone and if I was somewhere else and not being pushed, I don’t think I’d be on the same trajectory that I am now.’’
‘‘It’s the nature of professional sport. When you are the man, you are the man. But when you’re not, you’re not.’’
Keegan Smith