After a goalless first half, the Junior All Whites took a 52nd-minute lead when Dakota Lucas battled hard to get past defender Ben Sigmund and then beat goalkeeper Michael O’Keefe to the loose ball. It broke into the path of substitute Sean Lovemore for an easy sidefoot finish.
The Phoenix regained parity nine minutes later when Paul Ifill got round the back of the New Zealand defence and flicked the ball across for James Downey on the edge of the box. Under pressure from a New Zealand defender, Downey stretched to reach the pass and sent the ball sailing past substitute goalkeeper Coey Turipa.
The Colombia-bound age-group side looked set to claim a deserved draw until Phoenix Spanish trialist Dani Sanchez collected an uncleared Paul Ifill cross in the third minute of injury time and rounded Turipa to slot the winner.
With just two weeks before the Junior All Whites open their World Cup campaign against Cameroon, coach Chris Milicich was happy with the run out against a Phoenix side building for the start of the A-League in October.
“We got a lot out of the game,” Milicich says.
“We played 90 minutes of high intensity football. We closed them down from start to finish and made it difficult for them to do what they wanted. In the last fifteen minutes we had a decent share of the game and should have put some chances away but we didn’t and got punished. But these games are meant to help us get better.”
The Junior All Whites best chance of the first half came in the 27th minute when livewire forward Andy Bevin burst through on goal but O’Keefe was equal to Bevin’s low shot.
The save of the game came ten minutes earlier when Scott Basalaj, fresh from an impressive U-17 campaign, got down sharply to parry a stinging volley from Tim Brown.
Former Phoenix defender James Musa was a standout in defence for the Junior All Whites while Lucas and Bevin showed pace and plenty of appetite for hard work up front.
The introduction of Sean Lovemore in attack midway through the first half added even more speed but the need for the substitution arose from a worrying injury that Ryan Cain suffered at the hands of a Manny Muscat challenge. The knee injury will keep Cain out for ten days but he will travel with the team on Monday.
The Junior All Whites travel via the USA where they take on United Soccer League sides Southern California and Ventura County before moving on to Colombia.
New Zealand U-20: 1 (Sean LOVEMORE 52’)
Wellington Phoenix: 2 (James DOWNEY 61’, Dani SANCHEZ 90+3’)
Halftime: 0-0
North Harbour Stadium
Auckland
Crowd: 4083
New Zealand U-20: 1-Scott BASALAJ (gk / 21-Coey TURIPA 46’), 2-Andy BEVIN, 3-Nick BRANCH (c), 4-Ryan CAIN (5-Sean LOVEMORE 36’), 10-Anthony HOBBS, 11-Dakota LUCAS (8-Ethan GALBRAITH 77’), 12-Andrew MILNE (9-Tim PAYNE 59’), 13-Colin MURPHY, 14-James MUSA, 18-Adam THOMAS (6-Nikko BOXALL 75’), 19-Liam HIGGINS
Substitutes not used: 17-Mikey KRAMER
Coach: Chris MILICICH
Cautions: None
Wellington Phoenix: 26-Michael O’KEEFE (gk), 2-Manny MUSCAT (5-Cory CHETTLEBURGH 83’), 6-Tim BROWN, 7-Leo BERTOS (11-Daniel CORTES 46’) 8-Paul IFILL, 13-Nick TSATTALIOS, 14-Mirjan PAVLOVIC (23-Lucas PANTELIS 46’), 17-Vince LIA (21-Dani SANCHEZ 70’), 18-Ben SIGMUND, 19-James DOWNEY, 22-Andrew DURANTE (c)
Substitutes not used: 1-Phil IMRAY (rgk), 15-Bryan BRAN
Coach: Ricki HERBERT
Cautions: Andrew DURANTE 64’, Tim BROWN 73’
FIFA U-20 World Cup Colombia 2011
July 29 – August 20
New Zealand matches
New Zealand v Cameroon
Cali, Colombia
July 30, 2011
5pm (10am July 31 NZT)
New Zealand v Uruguay
Cali, Colombia
August 2, 2011
5pm (10am August 3 NZT)
New Zealand v Portugal
Cali, Colombia
August 5, 2011
5pm (10am August 6 NZT)
Story courtesy of New Zealand Football.
For more on New Zealand football go to www.nzfootball.co.nz