{"id":538309,"date":"2026-07-22T09:02:30","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T09:02:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/538309\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T09:02:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T09:02:30","slug":"wellington-phoenix-defender-mackenzie-barry-to-play-for-auckland-invitational-xi-against-chelsea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/538309\/","title":{"rendered":"Wellington Phoenix defender Mackenzie Barry to play for Auckland Invitational XI against Chelsea"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIf only there was a women\u2019s football team in New Zealand that Chelsea could have played!\u201d the now-deleted post read.<\/p>\n

\"MackenzieMackenzie Barry will play for the Auckland FC Invitational XI against Chelsea Women at Eden Park.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe one that just reached the Grand Final<\/a>? Or one that just had six thousand fans turn up for a playoff game?<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe even … one that actually existed?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"OliviaOlivia Chance has represented New Zealand at the World Cup and the Olympics.<\/p>\n

At the time of the announcement, Auckland FC chief executive Nick Becker said he couldn\u2019t confirm<\/a> whether any Phoenix players would be part of the squad.<\/p>\n

However, a statement from the club said it has made it a priority to fill the squad to play Chelsea with as many Kiwi players as possible.<\/p>\n

\"LizLiz Anton plays for Canberra United FC in the A-League Women.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, 32-year-old Olivia Chance joins the squad, having made 50 appearances for the Football Ferns since her debut in 2011, also being a part of their 2023 Women\u2019s World Cup squad.<\/p>\n

Liz Anton and Charlotte Lancaster, like Barry, play for A-League Women\u2019s clubs but are based in Australia with Canberra United and the Newcastle Jets.<\/p>\n

\"CharlotteCharlotte Lancaster is contracted to the Newcastle Jets.<\/p>\n

These four players join former Football Fern Abby Erceg<\/a>, who was the first player announced to be a part of the Invitational XI.<\/p>\n

The match against Chelsea is on August 8 and is part of the New Zealand International Football Festival, with Premier League team Tottenham Hotspur playing Auckland FC on July 26<\/a> also at Eden Park.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIf only there was a women\u2019s football team in New Zealand that Chelsea could have played!\u201d the now-deleted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[9092,27500,51,642,184,264972,39307,26848,83138,33736,5904,5213,2082,10813,139153,19755,57531,111,139,69,57694,10538,213,8229,61,52,1316,1533,2834,79941],"class_list":["post-538309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-against","tag-aleague","tag-auckland","tag-august","tag-barry","tag-captained","tag-chelsea","tag-defender","tag-fcs","tag-fern","tag-final","tag-football","tag-for","tag-grand","tag-invitational","tag-join","tag-mackenzie","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-phoenix","tag-play","tag-sports","tag-they","tag-to","tag-wellington","tag-when","tag-will","tag-womens","tag-xi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538309","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=538309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}