Ahead of Auckland FC’s Semi-Final against Melbourne Victory, Sky Sports NZ commentator Jason Pine tells aleagues.com.au how a city swept up in Black Knights hype is primed to create an atmosphere like no other on Saturday night.
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If you’re searching for any extra incentive to get excited for Saturday night’s Semi-Final in Auckland, allow Sky Sport NZ’s Jason Pine, the voice of New Zealand football, to set the scene.
“When those 22 players walk out onto the grass on Saturday night, the lights hit them, and they hear the roar of the crowd, it will be sensory overload,” Pine tells leagues.com.au.
“They’ll smell the grass, they’ll feel the crowd on top of them. Every nerve and sinew in their body will be totally alert to the sensory experience.
“As they’re waiting for the referee to blow his whistle to start the game, just that little moment of calm before the chaos, I think, will be a split second of what the game of football is able to produce. I don’t think any other sport can come close to doing that.
“Then it will absolutely be all on for 90 minutes – and maybe even longer. What an occasion it’s set to be.”
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For nearly two decades, Pine has narrated the highs and the lows of Wellington Phoenix and, for the last eight months, has been the voice of Auckland FC’s stunning first season in the competition.
Saturday’s Semi-Final second leg between the Black Knights and Melbourne Victory shapes as an occasion he believes could top all sporting events the nation has staged throughout its history.
And that’s before even contemplating the prospect of a Grand Final in Auckland, one week later, should Steve Corica’s side capitalise on their 1-0 first-leg advantage to progress to the title decider.
“I just think it will be unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. I can’t think of a comparison, really,” Pine said.
“This country is so steeped in rugby union. We think of the big All Blacks tests and the Rugby World Cup Finals that have happened here.
“Yes, they were special occasions, but there’s a uniqueness to this. There’s a fervour among football fans that is unmatched by supporters of any other code, I believe.”
Go Media Stadium will be at capacity on Saturday night. Tickets have been highly sought after, as they have been all season.
This is a team that has pulled an average attendance of more than 18,000 across 13 home games through their dazzling inaugural Isuzu UTE A-League campaign – the most of any team in the league.
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On Saturday night, attendance at Go Media Stadium is expected to get close to a 30,000 figure after the venue, Auckland FC, and the Australian Professional Leagues partnered to add 2,700 extra seats to the north end of the stadium.
In October, nearly 25,000 fans flocked to witness Auckland’s first-ever A-Leagues game, setting the tone for a special season in which home fans draped in black and blue have responded in kind to a club that, from the very beginning, prioritised forging strong connections within its local community to captivate a strong supporter base.
Saturday’s Semi-Final bout with Victory is as much about Auckland’s fans as it is their Premiership-winning side who, backed by an army of local support, are one game away from hosting the 2025 Grand Final.
“There have been a lot of special moments at Auckland home games this year,” Pine said.
“The first game. The first derby. The late goals. The drama. The connection with the fans. The Port jumping. The matchday experience is just this melting pot of football fans who are all coming together to create this incredible two hours of brilliance.
“The Port, the active support, they always gather happily at a little bar adjacent to Go Media Stadium called Lilyworld. They’re there an hour and a half before kick-off, and they all coordinate themselves, so they don’t just come down in dribs and drabs. They actually march down the stairs from the bar and end up in their seats at the southern end of the stadium.
“That’s always really eye-catching; they’re banging drums, they’re waving flags, they’re chanting. And the thing I love is that they do it half an hour before kick-off, not five minutes before, not 10 minutes before, but half an hour before.
“Everybody else who’s there gets caught up in it. Even if they’re sitting right down the other end, they can’t help but be swept up in it.”
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“The other thing I’ve noticed,” Pine continued, “is the wide variety of fans that Auckland attracted. There’s not one typical type of Auckland FC fan; you see families, young couples, grandparents with their grandkids, and groups of mates. All sorts, really.
“The third thing I’d say is that just about everybody now is wearing some replica gear.
“I don’t live in Auckland, but I’ve got a lot of friends who do, and the number of kids who are turning up at school in replica shirts, it used to be Premier League shirts, or the Phoenix, who had quite a big following in Auckland as well. But it’s just all blue and black now.
“At the start of the season, Auckland FC chief executive Nick Becker told me they had optimistically ordered 3,000 replica shirts. A month or so ago, they had sold 22,000 replica shirts. It’s just incredible.”
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Auckland FC’s generation of mass interest for their inaugural season has been a resounding success, and has occurred in spite of what critics of the latest A-Leagues expansion feared, in the wake of the failed New Zealand Knights venture in the first two years of the competition’s existence.
The Knights managed an attendance average of just under 3,500 for their 21 home games through the 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons before disbanding.
For 18 long years, Auckland went without a professional football club.
On October 19, 2024, as Auckland FC’s first-ever starting lineup walked out in front of 24,492 fans for their inaugural home game against Brisbane Roar, Pine contextualised the scenes from up high in the Sky Sports commentary box, proclaiming “the beautiful game is back in New Zealand’s largest region.”
He knew then that something special was unfolding in Auckland.
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“There has clearly been an appetite for it, just bubbling away,” he said.
“What happened with the New Zealand Knights at the start of the A-League era in 2005-07, that’s been used, I think, in the time since as a reason not to visit Auckland as an A-League proposition.
“Where expansion has happened in other places, whenever Auckland’s been mentioned, it’s been, ‘Well, we know what happened with the Knights. It isn’t a football city, it’s too big, there’s so much else on. The Warriors are there in the NRL, there are a couple of rugby union teams there, the NZ Breakers basketball team is there, how is a football team going to get cut through in that city? How are they going to attract crowds?’
“Well, all of those fears have been shown to be completely unfounded. You look now and you see that there has been that hunger and that appetite. Of course, every football club – and this will happen – they do go through ups and downs. Auckland FC are not going to win the A-League year after year after year, I don’t think, but when they do go through their inevitable ups and downs, you get the feeling the fans will be there regardless. That’s what it looks like.
“There just seems to be that really solid base of football fandom in Auckland, and I can’t see that changing.
“Every club says, ‘We want to connect with our community’ – especially startup clubs. Every club talks that talk, but Auckland FC walked the walk from very early on. They physically went out to almost every single football club in Auckland and made that connection.
“Whether it was turning up to watch the first team play, and giving some of the more promising players the opportunity to train or trial. Whether it was going to awards nights at junior clubs, waving the flag and shaking hands, getting out to schools, getting down to events where people were able to press the flesh with some of the players.
“Everywhere you looked in the Auckland football community, it seemed that Auckland FC was there. They put in that leg work, and it’s paying dividends. They really did connect with the football community, they walked the walk, and it has paid off.
“They’ve done an exceptional job of finding the community touchpoints in football in Auckland and hitting them all, really.”
This weekend, history repeats in New Zealand as, for the second season running, Victory are the opponents for a Semi-Final second leg against a team from across the ditch.
Last year it was Wellington Phoenix who hosted their first-ever Semi-Final and went toe-to-toe with Victory, but fell just short of securing a spot in the Grand Final.
A 0-0 draw in Melbourne led to a tense second-leg tie in which former Phoenix striker Oskar Zawada scored a 99th-minute equaliser to cancel out Adama Traore’s 81st-minute opener and set up extra time.
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Victory ultimately prevailed, as Chris Ikonomidis bagged the winning goal in the first half of extra time to send Victory to the Grand Final, breaking the hearts of the majority of the 33,297 fans packed into Sky Stadium for the biggest game in Wellington Phoenix history.
“It’s eerily similar,” Pine said. “Away at Victory, and then home. Wellington couldn’t get the goal that Auckland did in the first leg, but came home knowing it was basically a knockout match.
“It was a massive crowd, yellow and black was everywhere you looked around the city. There was an influx of Victory fans who had made the trip across. Everywhere you looked, it was all about the A-League, and all about Wellington Phoenix.
“I live in Wellington, so I remember the buzz around the city well in the week leading up to the second leg. That’s basically what’s happening in and around Auckland this week as well, and it will ramp up at the back end of the week.
“But this time it is different, because Phoenix fans waited so long for a game of that magnitude, and afterwards, there was that sense of it being so close but so far, having not made the final step to the Grand Final.
“We’re right to remember last year with how well Wellington did, and Auckland picking up the baton and sprinting away with it this year.
“Auckland fans, I’m sure, will be very bullish after what they saw the other night. Victory, despite having the most feared attacking arsenal in the entire A-League, haven’t been able to score against Auckland in three games; that’s remarkable, really.
“Look at the players Victory have: Nishan Velupillay, Daniel Arzani, Nikos Vergos, Bruno Fornaroli, Clerismario Santos, Zinedine Machach, Reno Piscopo. What a roster – and yet the combined effort of those players hasn’t been able to score in the three games against Auckland. It’s remarkable.
“Everything ramps up for the finals, and I think the uniqueness of it in Wellington last year was what stood out the most.
“It was as far as Wellington had ever gone, and although Auckland have just arrived, every time they play a game now it seems to be a first. Last weekend: a first-ever finals game. This weekend: a first-ever finals game at home. Who knows? The following week, a first Grand Final if things go well.”
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Pine will be in the commentary box once again on Saturday night, as Auckland tick off another major achievement in the club’s short but illustrious history, hosting Victory for the opportunity to host the Grand Final at Go Media Stadium on May 31.
On the south side of the stadium, the Port will bring the noise. On the north side of the stadium, Victory’s travelling supporter base will add to the intensity. And with 2,700 additional seats in the venue, the atmosphere will be cranked up to a level not yet seen at an Auckland home game this season.
“It’s going to be absolutely massive,” Pine said.
“Home crowds at Go Media this year have been terrific anyway, averaging over 18,000 for home matches. I’m sure you’ve seen the scenes on television of the active support, The Port, just going crazy down at the Southern end of Go Media. It will go up another level this weekend.
“The fact that Auckland come home with that one-goal advantage from the first leg. The fact that, at the end of 90 minutes on Saturday night – or extra time and penalties – Auckland FC could reach the Grand Final. Nobody wants to miss the chance to see that live, and to be there if it happens.
“There’s absolutely no doubt it will be a sellout – if it’s not sold out already. From what’s already been an unbelievable matchday experience, it will just ratchet up another level on Saturday night, I’m certain of it.
“We often hear players talk about wanting to be involved in the big games, in the really big matches and being on the biggest stage and in the media, I think it’s the same. We, too crave and relish pinnacle events, big moments, big matches.
“I simply cannot wait to be a very small part of this occasion on Saturday night, bearing witness to what could really be something special. I feel very, very lucky to be along for the ride.”
Auckland host Victory at Go Media Stadium on Saturday, May 24 at 4pm AEST. The Black Knights take a 1-0 aggregate lead into the second leg of the Semi-Final tie.
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