Few, if any, would have anticipated that Auckland FC would sit atop the A-League Men table after eight rounds of the 2024-25 season. Entering this year as an expansion franchise, common sense pointed to some kind of breaking-in period as they looked to find their feet. The assembled talent suggested they could make an impact at some point, but leading the league at Christmas was almost without precedent. Even Western Sydney, in their premiership-winning debut season, lost four of their first eight games.
Yet two months into this campaign, Steve Corica’s side are undefeated in the seven matches they have played, two points clear of second-placed Adelaide and with the best goal difference in the league, propelled by a series of results that have re-written the record books. Let the good times roll.
Though ended by Sunday’s 2-2 draw with Melbourne City, Auckland’s six-game winning streak to start the season broke Western Suburbs’ 47-year-old record for the best start by a new entrant in Australian national league history. A run of five straight clean sheets broke Preston’s 38-year-old record for the longest time before conceding in an Australian national league season, according to football stats doyen Andrew Howe. Not only has this been a good start, it has been a historically good one.
And Corica hasn’t had to reinvent the wheel to get here. Alongside director of football Terry McFlyn, Corica has assembled a strong foundation of Australians and Kiwis and, as evidenced by captain Hiroki Sakai, got his foreign recruitment mostly right. On the pitch, Auckland are organised and disciplined – a defensively sound unit that doesn’t beat themselves and will punish mistakes. When setting up an expansion entity, nailing these basics is a recipe to hit the ground running while building strong foundations. But this year, with many ALM sides showing an adeptness for finding ways to beat themselves, it’s also a recipe for success.
Having been dropped into a large market with no existing team and with a ready-made rival in Wellington, the club’s strong start off the park is equally noteworthy. An average attendance of 19,534 is not only the highest in the league this season, but it is also more than the combined averages of the previous two expansion sides, Western United and Macarthur FC. The real test, inevitably, is figuring out how to maintain this energy and ensure a chunk of that average is still attending in two, three, four or five years. Being the hot new ticket in town can only sustain a club for so long, but for now at least, the city of Auckland seems to be buying in.
Having a billionaire owner in the American businessman Bill Foley to underwrite the project helps, and this should not be confused for an underdog story. Foley also proved useful in helping push through rule changes that allowed his Premier League side Bournemouth to buy Alex Paulsen – the best goalkeeper in the ALM with Wellington last campaign – and immediately loan him to Auckland.
Sunday’s draw against City was not only the first time Auckland have dropped points this season, but it was also their first real test in Australia. Acid tests against second-placed Adelaide and third-placed Melbourne Victory await in the new year. Centre-back and early-season standout Dan Hall has just suffered a broken ankle.
Nonetheless, expansion and success aren’t strangers in the A-League universe. The Wanderers won silverware in their first year while Western won a championship in their third. Macarthur have claimed two Australia Cups in five years. On Sunday, Auckland were tested when falling behind for the first time in their existence, and again when they conceded a second, but aided by a 95th-minute Patrick Beach howler, they fought back. That might not be a historic moment but it was a big one, and would have been for any team.
For the APL, the league’s administrators, watching these green shoots emerge is a godsend; after a turgid past few years, anything less would have been disastrous. Perhaps the only downside for the APL is that it is a team based in New Zealand that has shown the way, keeping the story off the radar of an already disinterested Australian mainstream.
But this being Australian football, there is always a sting in the tail. And here, the success of Auckland shines a spotlight not only on Western and Macarthur’s sluggish integration with their communities but also the APL’s attempts to introduce an expansion franchise into Canberra. The latter was supposed to happen this season only to be pushed back to 2025-26. It remains an almost complete mystery. Foley, in contrast, was publicly in place as a preferred bidder for Auckland’s licence last October. Maybe Auckland’s expansion could be said to be defying history on and off the field.
