Football: Spoonley set for biggest game of his life

Auckland City goalie Jacob Spoonley. Photo / Paul Eastcourt.

Whatever happens in Auckland City's opening game at the Fifa Club World Cup, Jacob Spoonley knows he will be busy.

But he's used to it - he juggles football with two jobs - and it's the way it is for goalkeepers facing higher-ranked opposition. For the Oceania champions to have any chance against Sanfrecce Hiroshima on Thursday night (11.45pm NZT), Spoonley needs to have the game of his life. And he's okay with that.

"A lot of goalkeepers struggle with [the presure], especially young goalkeepers, and being from New Zealand you are going to be the focus during the game," said Spoonley.

"But as I have got older, I have learned to enjoy it. It's not something you should be daunted by, it's something you embrace. You have 90 minutes to show not only New Zealand but also the world that you deserved to be there."

Auckland City remain the oddity in this event, a semi-professional team mixing it with fully professional outfits. Spoonley juggles training with fulltime work as a lawyer and also has a part-time role as a legal adviser with the Professional Footballers Association.

"Russell McVeigh have been very good," said Spoonley. "They've given me time off work so I can focus on football."

Although he hasn't always been No 1, Spoonley has proved his mettle on many occasions in the past, including during the bronze medal playoff at last year's Club World Cup. He was thrown in for the match against Cruz Azul - after Tamati Williams had played the previous three games - and excelled, performing well in normal time and making the key save in the penalty shootout.

"That was a surprise and I am not entirely sure why Ramon [Tribulietx] decided to put me in," admitted Spoonley. "I wasn't ready for it so you have to adjust pretty quickly. But after [that] it was just a case of enjoying the game."

Spoonley has been around for a long time. He made his Auckland City debut in 2005, had a spell at the Wellington Phoenix in 2007 and made his All Whites bow in 2008. But he's spent a lot of his career in the queue, as can happen to keepers, with Glen Moss, Mark Paston and Williams often being preferred for club and country. But he's taken his chance when offered - named in the A-League team of the week after one Phoenix performance in 2012, standing out for the Oly-Whites at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and at the centre of Auckland City's memorable Dubai campaign in 2009.

About to take part in his fifth Club World Cup, Spoonley is well placed to assess the merits of this team.

"Every year we have been developing Ramon's ideas and understanding how you play in your position and each year Ramon's ideas have developed, too. This is a team that's a sum of those parts. It will be interesting to see if we have developed enough to give a decent challenge to Sanfrecce."

And what are the chances of another monumental upset, as we saw three times last year?

"I guess every year it is a mission impossible scenario," said Spoonley. "Last year we did very well and we are burdened a little bit because of our success then, combined with the fact that teams are going to take us a lot more seriously. They'll have done their homework, they understand what we try to do. We can't fly under the radar but we are not going to be daunted by it, either. We have a lot of players from last year and they understand what they have to do to be successful at this tournament and how to implement Ramon's strategies."