{"id":148208,"date":"2025-11-22T14:16:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T14:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/148208\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T14:16:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T14:16:08","slug":"wellington-phoenix-v-macarthur-late-strike-means-giancarlo-italianos-side-suffer-back-to-back-home-defeats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/148208\/","title":{"rendered":"Wellington Phoenix v Macarthur: Late strike means Giancarlo Italiano\u2019s side suffer back-to-back home defeats"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cHe kept us in it,\u201d captain Alex Rufer told Sky Sports after the match.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were some sloppy moments from us defensively and he kept us in the game, so hats off to him. He was brilliant tonight and he\u2019s really growing this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the Phoenix playing a high defensive line, Oluwayemi was called on countless times during the match and produced numerous saves to keep his team in the match.<\/p>\n

The visitors thought they had opened the scoring in the eighth minute, but Matt Jurman\u2019s strike was ruled out because of being offside.<\/p>\n

It took 30 minutes for the Phoenix\u2019s first real opportunity when Ifeanyi Eze\u2019s header went over the crossbar from a Kazuki Nagasawa free kick.<\/p>\n

\"PhoenixPhoenix goalkeeper Josh Oluwayemi produced his best performance for the side on Saturday. Photo \/ Photosport<\/p>\n

On the ensuing play, Olawaeymi was forced into his first stunning save when he got a hand to Ji Dong-won\u2019s strike towards the bottom corner.<\/p>\n

Olawaeymi was called upon again in the 60th minute when Sime Grzan broke clear from inside his own half to be one-on-one with the keeper, but the Phoenix import was up to the task and made a vital block.<\/p>\n

The Phoenix had the ball in the back of the net in the 77th minute but Eze was denied, as Nagasawa was offside in the lead-up.<\/p>\n

Then came Sawyer\u2019s strike, which extends the Phoenix\u2019s streak without a clean sheet to 17 matches.<\/p>\n

Rufer played the entire match despite only landing back in the capital on Friday having played 80 minutes in the All Whites\u2019 2-0 loss to Ecuador on Wednesday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But he refused to use that as an excuse for the loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should still be better,\u201d Rufer said. \u201cThat\u2019s no excuse.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to be better and we lost it towards the end, but we need to just try and still be positive and look towards the next few games.\u201d <\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t get any easier for the Phoenix as next Saturday they host Adelaide United, who are coming off a 4-1 win over defending champions Melbourne City.<\/p>\n

Ben Francis<\/a> is an Auckland-based reporter for the New Zealand Herald who covers breaking sports news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cHe kept us in it,\u201d captain Alex Rufer told Sky Sports after the match. \u201cThere were some sloppy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[74,27500,59740,10803,71,99232,9859,305,1345,99233,4507,11556,99231,17768,111,139,69,57694,16553,6102,13418,213,4485,99234,49962,3179,52],"class_list":["post-148208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-after","tag-aleague","tag-backtoback","tag-defeats","tag-from","tag-giancarlo","tag-harry","tag-have","tag-home","tag-italianos","tag-late","tag-losing","tag-macarthur","tag-means","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-phoenix","tag-sawyer","tag-side","tag-slumped","tag-sports","tag-strike","tag-substitute","tag-suffer","tag-thanks","tag-wellington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}