What Auckland FC have achieved in their first season is remarkable and it could still get better, with the A-League’s knockout finals still to be played.
When the club was barely in existence last year, Texas billionaire and majority owner Bill Foley told the Herald: “We are going to be a very competitive team. We will win a number of games ... I don’t want to make a prediction but I believe we [will] win a lot more games than people give us credit for. We’ll do very well.”
Maybe Foley has a golden touch – his Las Vegas ice hockey team made the Stanley Cup finals in their debut season as well.
But even to an ambitious boss, finishing the regular season at the top of the A-League ladder must feel like a dream.
New Zealand’s other professional sporting clubs, particularly the Wellington Phoenix as our other professional football club, will be looking on in envy at how successful Auckland FC have become in such a short time.
Their home matches were the hottest ticket in town this summer and their first playoff game will no doubt sell out in short time.
Manager Steve Corica has become a cult hero in the city, and every day more and more children are running around Auckland’s backyards and parks wearing a Hiroki Sakai jersey.
Stacking up victories of course makes all the difference, but Auckland had been starved of professional football since the New Zealand Knights folded in 2007.
Auckland loves a winner and its football club is one.
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