Wellington Phoenix head Giancarlo ‘Chiefy’ Italiano admitted the Isuzu UTE A-League club are hoping for the best as they wait to see the severity of new recruit Paulo Retre’s injury.
An off-season acquisition from the Indian Super League, Retre was brought in to add some steel to the ‘Nix midfield but recently suffered a groin injury in training, leaving Italiano sweating over the results of his scans.
Ahead of Sunday’s Round 1 showdown with visiting Western United, Italiano was asked about the availability of the two-time A-Leagues champion.
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“He had a bit of an incident in training a couple of sessions ago,” he said.
“He felt aggravation in his groin. He’s getting scanned today, we suspect it’s probably a grade one (tear) at the moment, or hoping it’s a grade one. So we’re hoping it would just be four weeks out.”
Furthermore, fellow new signing Marco Rojas remains injured and on the sidelines for at least another couple of weeks.
“Marco (is) still recovering from his fracture, but he’s going better than expected at the moment, so we’re kind of hoping that he’ll be involved by the Derby,” added Italiano.
Italiano’s Phoenix promise to look vastly different this season following their best ever campaign in the Isuzu UTE A-League, which saw them finish second and ultimately reach the 2023-24 Semi-Finals.
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A raft of off-season departures though forced the club’s hand in the transfer market, with goalkeeper Alex Paulsen, midfielders Ben Old, Finn Surman and Bozhidar Kraev and star striker Oskar Zawada among those to have left.
Of those to have been snapped up by the ‘Nix were Japanese duo Kazuki Nagasawa and Hideki Ishige, former Tottenham Hotspur academy goalkeeper Josh Oluwayemi and A-Leagues champion Stefan Colakovski.
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“Both Nagasawa and Ishige, very well. It’s taken them a bit of time,” said Italiano when asked how his new Japanese duo have settled in.
“I would have liked a little bit more time in pre-season for them to, you know, absorb the principles that we’re trying to get through this year, or trying to play with (but) they’ve been doing very well.
He added: “Joshy (Oluwayemi) had a little bit of sickness, which kind of halted his progress. But every game that he plays, I’m always more and more confident he’s a great addition to the squad. So those three been very, very positive additions.”
For Italiano, season 2024-25 is about evolution rather than revolution following on from what was a break out year for the then rookie head coach.
No longer flying under the radar though, the second-year Australian coach believes last season’s successes on the pitch have actually made for a more challenging pre-season this time around.
“Last year I had the advantage where I had three months of no interruptions and I had the same squad for the three months and I could control everything they did,” he said.
“Unfortunately this preseason we’ve had, I think, three to four windows outside our control. Last year, we had hardly any players in contention for the national teams and now every player is in contention, which is a great thing, but because of those windows, we’ve had less time to get everyone together.
“Due to the lateness of signing the imports as well, just getting them all together at the same, you know, in the same place, and working on the stuff that we need to and building that chemistry, cohesion has been difficult.
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“But again, it’s more on the coaching side, an opportunity for us to be more thorough in our process and more detailed and getting more bang for our buck in terms of the content and our teaching points.
He added: “I feel as though the group, it’s further ahead than what I expected with all of those interruptions.”
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