Soccer: Big Mac ready to face his old team-mates

Dylan Macallister. Photo / Getty Images

Strikers have made an art form of goal celebrations.

Marco Tardelli's unbridled joy when scoring for Italy against West Germany at the 1982 World Cup is probably the most famous, Robbie Fowler's cocaine snort the most infamous and Peter Crouch's robot one of the naffest.

Craig Bellamy had the golf swing, Tim Cahill does the shadow boxing and Didier Drogba the knee slide.

Dylan Macallister knows he needs to work on his. The last one he performed didn't turn out that well.

He scored the opening goal in the 2-1 defeat of Boca Juniors, wheeled off and celebrated in front of an empty section at the Cake Tin. At least the security guard there felt important.

"Playing against Boca Juniors was pretty special," Macallister says. "It was my first goal at Westpac Stadium and, mate, I hadn't planned it as you could tell. I ran to the wrong corner. I will be prepared next time. I haven't got a celebration up my sleeve but I will make sure I do the right thing."

Today would be perfect timing. Macallister faces his old club Central Coast and, while he has no ill-feeling towards the Mariners, the last 12 months of his two years there weren't quite what he had in mind.

The previous season he had returned to Australia after playing in Europe, played every game, scored goals and was selected for the Socceroos. He might have expected to kick on. In the end, he was thankful when he got the chance to just kick the ball.

Macallister had a frustrating season with Central Coast. Off-season shoulder surgery hampered his campaign, resulting in him scoring just one goal in only five starts (plus 12 substitute appearances).

"It was a tough year for me last year," he says. "I found it hard to get going and get some momentum and I was up and down in form.

"I knew it was time for a change and the Phoenix was the right place to come. They play a formation that suits my style."

Macallister is a good, old-fashioned target man and allows Wellington to play with one, two or three up front. That role fell to Chris Greenacre last year but the differences between the two are stark - Macallister is 1.91m and Greenacre 1.80m and 80kg.

The pair have already forged a good combination and Macallister teed up Greenacre for one of his two goals against the Gold Coast last weekend.

"Some players you understand and others you don't," he says. "I worked out pretty quickly that me and Chris have an understanding. I know what Chris is going to do before he does it and I know how he wants to play. We just have to make eye contact and we will know what we are going to do.

"[Paul] Ifill and [Leo] Bertos, they are different. No one knows what they are going to do. They are unpredictable. If Chris and I can set each other up every week, we'll be happy."

It will certainly help the Phoenix if their two chief strikers get on the scoresheet more often. Ifill was last season's top scorer with 13, while Tim Brown collected eight from midfield. Greenacre scored six.

A bit has changed at the Mariners. They have 12 new players, including a new goalkeeper, as well as a new coach in former Socceroos assistant Graham Arnold as they look to turn around a disappointing 2009/10 season when they finished eighth.

They have made a decent start to the new season with a win and a draw in their first two games.

"I will have a little whisper in a few of the boys' ears about how to get under the skin of a few [Central Coast] boys and what their weaknesses are but we know what to do," Macallister says. "As long as we stick to our game and play attacking football, we should come away with the points."

If their new striker manages to score, he will also celebrate appropriately. The golden arches might be an idea. After all, he is known in some quarters as Big Mac.