Emma Burke 
Wellington Phoenix 2024/25 A-League Women's season preview. Photo: Texi Smith. Design: Round Ball Australia.
The Wellington Phoenix have only been in the A-League Women competition for three years, and last season’s campaign, which saw them end the regular season placed eighth on the table, was their best finish yet.
The WahiNix came out guns blazing in the 2023/24 season, but a long stretch spent away from home and multiple injuries to key players left them unable to sustain their momentum.
The Nix have undergone many changes to their squad during the off-season, but just like the Phoenix they are named after, they will look to rise from the ashes again and push to prove themselves as a successful team.
The Manager: Paul Temple
Paul Temple spent many years working for the Wellington Phoenix before taking on the role as head coach of the Women’s side. He was previously a youth coach, and a technical director of the men’s reserves team for three seasons. His tenure as head coach began in 2023 when the previous coach, Natalie Edwards, left the club.
Under his charge, Wellington Phoenix have played a specific style of football in “small ball” that relies heavily on possession retention and the exploitation of space. Temple wants, and has, his players moving the ball quickly and carefully through opposing teams.
This season, Temple is looking to evolve with more emphasis being put on playing out from the back, and in exploiting the skills of the new arrivals to the squad.
Temple has expressed that his team will still be looking to be as efficient and effective as they can, playing the exciting football that their fans have come to know and love in the last three years.
The Squad
Wellington Phoenix have had a large overhaul of their playing roster, losing a number of figures that were key to their success last season.
The new signings that have been found however include a number of homegrown talent, so this new-look Wellington will likely be inspiring to many young women and girls playing football over the ditch.
Many of the players who have left the Nix have gone to ply their trade in the United States. Grace Wisnewski and Hope Breslin have both gone to teams in the newly established USL Super League, Lexington SC and Brooklyn FC respectively, while Macey Fraser broke the A-League Women transfer fee when she made the move to the Utah Royals in the NWSL.
Wellington’s other great loss was in Venezuelan International Mariana Speckmaier who has since penned a contract with Melbourne City.
The bulk of Wellington Phoenix’s new signings have come in the form of scholarship players, brought up from the club’s reserves. Goalkeeper Aimee Danieli, attacking midfielder Ela Jerez, and centre-back Ella McMilan, have all been signed on two year scholarship contracts, while two former scholarship players in Olivia Ingham and Daisy Brazendale have both been bumped up to full-time contracts for the next two seasons.
These players will be joined by international players in Portuguese goalkeeper Carolina Vilao, who arrives from S.L. Benfica, American Maya McCutcheon, England’s Olivia Fergusson, and Japan’s Mebae Tanaka from the NPLW Victoria runners-up Preston Lions.
The Nix have also secured the return of their Captain Annalie Longo, a veteran Football Fern, who struggled last season with injury.
Expectations
Head coach Paul Temple has spoken previously of his ambitions to take Wellington to the playoffs, a sentiment that has been echoed by Captain Annalie Longo, but in order to do that the Nix will need to improve on their away game.
While it is hard to see them making finals this season, especially with so many new faces to the team, if they do so, it will only happen if they start winning their away games. Last season the Nix won seven of their 11 home games, but only won two away games.
A higher finish on the ladder is definitely achievable for this team, but finals may not be on the cards this time around.