The Wellington Phoenix secured their place in the Australia Cup round of 32 after beating the Brisbane Roar 1-0 in Wednesday night’s playoff in Darwin.
Kosta Barbarouses was the hero as the Phoenix great settled the midweek contest in the 39th minute.
After scoring 10 goals in the A-League season, Barbarouses proved decisive once more for Wellington at the expense of Brisbane in Michael Valkanis’ first competitive fixture since replacing Roar boss Ruben Zadkovich last week.
It was a pleasing performance in the eyes of Nix head coach Giancarlo Italiano, who oversaw a historic run to the 2023-24 A-League semifinals before a challenging campaign this term.
"I was really happy because it felt like we went back to things that worked for us for a long period," Italiano said as the Phoenix joined the Perth Glory in the round of 32 after playoff wins.
Italiano made four changes to the side that started the disappointing 2-0 final round defeat to Perth Glory with Matthew Sheridan, Paulo Retre, Nathan Walker and Gabriel Sloane-Rodrigues replacing the injured Corban Piper and Isaac Hughes, and Luke Brooke-Smith and Kazuki Nagasawa, who were named among the substitutes.
Back-up goalkeeper Dublin Boon, young centre back Jayden Smith and reserves forward Dan Makowem were also promoted to the bench.
The Phoenix should have taken the lead from the penalty spot in the 11th minute when keeper Josh Oluwayemi brought down Roar winger Henry Hore in the Wellington box, but Jay O’Shea blasted his spot kick against the crossbar.
The Nix took the lead with Sloane-Rodrigues starting and finishing a Wellington attack. He made a mazy run in field from the left flank and found Brooke-Smith, an early entrant to the game for the injured Walker.
Brooke-Smith returned the ball to Sloane-Rodrigues, who delivered a first-time cross-come-shot, and Barbarouses made sure of it by heading into an open net.
It took the Roar 20 minutes after halftime to register their next shot on target with Oluwayemi making a good save to push a powerful O’Shea shot around his right-hand post.
He made an even better stop 10 minutes later to deny Brisbane substitute Ben Halloran one-on-one after the Nix coughed up possession deep inside their own half.
The Phoenix went down to 10 men in the 89th minute when Alex Rufer received a second yellow card for a foul on his opposite O’Shea.
Wellington players will part ways before reassembling for the start of preseason training in July. — A-Leagues/Phoenix
