Pressure builds on Nix coach
If Darije Kalezic is unable to get the Wellington Phoenix off the bottom of the A-League ladder, then history suggests he will be shown the door come the end of the season.
Following the 1-0 loss to the Central Coast Mariners in Gosford on Friday night, the Phoenix slipped three points behind the Mariners at the foot of the table.
It led Kalezic to say he had two main goals for the last six games of the season, should he remain in charge.
‘‘One of the goals of course is to do every game our best, this is our professional duty. For every player and every coach to do our best to our fans, to our owners, to everybody.
‘‘And we already decide to give the players who did not get a lot of chances this season to play a lot of minutes so that we can see how good they are in terms of the future of Wellington Phoenix.
‘‘It will be a combination of that and hopefully we are going to perform well and come off the bottom of the table.’’
That last part would be particularly important for Kalezic’s future when you look at the fate woodenspoon managers have met over the years in the league.
Only one manager in the history of the A-League has ever survived overseeing a last-placed finish when coaching for the full season. That was Phoenix coach Ricki Herbert after the 2007-08 season, the club’s first in the league when concessions were given for what was a tumultuous beginning.
Every other manager across the 11 other completed seasons has either been sacked or resigned during or at the end of a woodenspoon season (or seen their club disbanded, in the case of the New Zealand Knights, North Queensland Fury and Gold Coast United).
Names like Gary van Egmond, Aurelio Vidmar, John Aloisi and even Herbert, during the 2012-13 campaign, all walked through the exit door.
Those departures have seen mixed success the following season. Five clubs did not make the finals, three clubs made the playoffs and three clubs were disbanded. No club, other than the hapless Knights, has won back-toback wooden spoons.
Rini Coolen’s 2010-11 Adelaide United side were the pick of the bunch, managing third after Vidmar guided them to last in the preceding campaign, although Ernie Merrick’s current Newcastle Jets team might better that as they sit second, eight points clear of third.
For now though, Kalezic would be taking things week-to-week, and at least this week there is no chance they can add to their 12 losses this season, since they don’t have one scheduled as the A-League enters another split round.
That meant there would be plenty of time to analyse what went wrong during Friday night’s game ahead of their next match against the Western Sydney Wanderers on March 10.
‘‘We can take many things from the second half [of the Mariners game] to the next week, but we are disappointed that we get again a great chance to come off the bottom and we have to talk about why we missed that chance.’’
The Phoenix need to pick up eight points from their final six games to ensure this isn’t the worst-ever Phoenix season in terms of points won. That record is held by Merrick’s 2015-16 outfit, with 25 points, but finished ninth because the Mariners managed just 13 points that season.