Wellington Phoenix face familiar scramble following swift Italiano exit

Giancarlo Italiano's dramatic exit as Wellington Phoenix's head coach leaves the struggling A-League club in limbo with eight games remaining in the season.

Italiano stepped away from the team he had been the head coach of since 2023 after another hefty derby loss to Auckland FC.

He publicly announced his departure not long after the final whistle on Saturday.

The Phoenix play title-contenders Sydney FC in Wellington on Sunday, so the club will need to make some quick decisions about who takes on the head coach role either in an interim or permanent capacity.

Unless the 10th placed Phoenix can string wins together and get other results to fall their way, they will miss the play-offs and the season will be over in nine weeks time.

Italiano was the Phoenix's sixth permanent head coach in 19 seasons, but this is not the first time the club has been left scrambling to fill the role.

The question is whether the club will turn to the same man that has temporarily filled in three times previously - Chris Greenacre - to see out the season.

The club's first coach, former All Whites coach Ricki Herbert, was in charge for six seasons before he resigned during the season after a run of poor results in 2013.

Former Phoenix player Greenacre, at the time an assistant coach with the team, stepped in for the remainder of the 2013 season.

Experienced A-League coach Ernie Merrick was next to take on the permanent role for three seasons before leaving in similar circumstances to Herbert and Italiano in 2016.

Again Greenacre was part of the solution, helping to fill the void before the club's third coach Darije Kalezic joined.

When Kalezic left during the 2017/18 season after a breakdown in contract negotiations for the following season, Greenacre, who was then a youth programme head coach with the Phoenix took charge of training and head coach duties.

Fourth coach Mark Rudan had success with the Phoenix before leaving for family reasons, but at least he made until the end of the 2018/19 season before returning to Australia.

Australian Ufuk Talay became head coach in the 2019/20 season and brought with him Italiano as a analyst and second assistant coach.

Talay left the club four seasons later, at season's end, with the accolade as the club's most successful coach and Italiano moved into the head coach role.

The Phoenix have yet to announce the plan to replace Italiano but they will not have to look far to find Greenacre should they decide he is again the go-to.

Player to coach

Greenacre, a former Manchester City and Tranmere Rovers striker, played 84 times for the Phoenix between 2009 and 2012.

He scored 19 goals during his Phoenix playing days and became a fan favourite along the way.

A long held ambition to coach started at the Phoenix in 2012 when he made the quick transition from player to assistant coach.

Greenacre has served as an assistant coach under Phoenix coaches - Herbert, Merrick, Kalezic, Rudan and Talay.

He is the Phoenix academy's head of pro development and has coached the reserves team since 2017.

In 2024 Greenacre also coached the New Zealand Under 20 team.

Licensed to do the job

Coaching qualifications, in the form of licences, matter in football.

When Greenacre was leading the Phoenix in an interim capacity after Merrick quit, he was doing so in a co-coach role with Des Buckingham.

At the time, under Football Federation Australia (now Football Australia) regulations the coach needed a Pro Licence which Buckingham held and Greenacre did not.

Buckingham became the head coach and the Phoenix said Greenacre, with a UEFA A Licence, was the co-coach.

Greenacre has since upskilled and in 2022 completed the AFC Pro Diploma.

Kelly Guimaraes

Brazilian Kelly Guimaraes was Italiano's lead assistant coach for the 2025-26 A-League season and could also get the call-up to the top job.

He arrived in Wellington with a decade of assistant coach experience with the likes of Paranaense, Corinithians and Gremio in Brazil.

At the time of his appointment he said the assistant coach "needs to be very close with the players so they can act as an intermediary between them and the head coach".

"We also have to be another set of eyes for the head coach.

"The head coach has a lot of things to think about, to plan and to organise and sometimes the assistant coach can see something that helps the coach."

Guimaraes and Italiano would have worked closely together and it may cause less disruption to the squad for him transition to the head coach role, even if just until the end of the season.

"In Brazil as a footballer and coach I have learned the players need the freedom to play and use their creativity," Guimaraes said in July.

"I think we're going to motivate the players to be free and create.

"Of course they will respect the team's tactical plans, but they will be free to create and to make something different."

The players and the team could use something different to get them through the remainder of the competition before the club will face some big decisions about the future.

Click here to read article