Posted by Jeremy Brockie
Last week, the Wellington Phoenix took on Juventus great Alessandro Del Piero and Sydney FC at Allianz Stadium.
The end result for me and my teammates was a bitterly disappointing 7-1 loss to the Sky Blues but at least we got to see firsthand the incredible talents of the Italian icon who scored four great goals and set up another.
Del Piero's performance last week was unbelievable, it shows that you can't give a player of that quality any time on the ball otherwise he will punish you!
It was definitely up there with the best performances I've seen whilst being on the same pitch. I remember back in the Confederations Cup in 2009 when we played Spain and Fernando Torres had a hat-trick after 12 minutes but definitely in the A-League, that was the best individual performance I've seen.
The way he makes time for himself when he is on the ball is special to watch and so intelligent. Despite being in his late 30's, he still manages to be given time and space and when that occurs, will more often than not make that final killer pass or put the ball in the back of the net as we have seen throughout the whole season.
In terms of profile and performances, for me he is the biggest signing in the A-League to date with media from all around the world showing interest in what he is doing which helps raise the profile of the A-League.
Like I said, he has taken the league to another level and I'm sure more high-profile players from around the world will be interested in making a move to Australia to test the water for themselves.
Despite the heavy loss, the mood in our camp this week has been positive and when you have a bad result like ours, the next game can't come quick enough so we are all looking forward to our game back at home this Sunday and will be working hard to get a result.
Making the finals is certainly still something on the mind of our whole squad. We are currently only five points off the top six and our next two results are very important in terms of making a push towards finals football.
