Success upon success for men’s football team

University of Auckland men’s football captain Connor Turton would like nothing more than to top off his university experience with some silverware.

Connor will enter his fifth year of his Law and Business degree in 2025, and later in the year has a chance to compete against some of the world’s best university footballers at the 2025 FISU Football World Cup in China.

Connor and the UoA team earned the right to compete at the event, which will be held in Dalian from 17-24 September 2025, after they clinched the FISU Oceania Championship in New South Wales on 1 December.

Playing against Wollongong, the Australian university football champions, Connor says the team was hopeful going into the game.

“You never want to be too confident and must always show opposing teams respect, especially when playing overseas,” he says.

“Wollongong have won the Australian national championships multiple times and they looked confident going into the game. But we had performed really well at our nationals at Eden Park, convincingly beating AUT and seeing out a good win against the University of Canterbury.”

Auckland earned its place against Wollongong in the Oceania final after winning the national university championship in October.

“Given our great result in 2022 against Western Sydney University [which qualified the side for the FISU Cup in 2023], we were confident we could get a result against Wollongong.”

Connor says the team didn’t always show off their best football in the Australian match, which was played in Sydney in hot conditions.

“But we got off to a bit of a flyer with striker Matthew Matanyayire hitting the crossbar within the first 30 seconds. Then after two minutes he was on target and gave us the lead, which was a great way to start off in a pretty tense atmosphere. I think we did well to stick in the game.”

After Matthew, who is a rising star in the Auckland FC Under 23 side, had put them on the scoresheet, the second half was a nail-biter with UoA holding onto its one-nil advantage until the second minute of added time. Tyler Stubbs then sealed the victory with a second goal, making the final score 2-0.

“That was a good team move, right at the death,” says Connor. “Up until then we had been a bit unlucky with Jonah [Pastiroff] hitting the crossbar early in the second half. But even the best teams need to scrape out some results at times and we definitely did that.”

Connor says one of the secrets to the side’s recent successes - this is the second time they've qualified for the FISU event, first appearing in 2023 in Jingang, China – is “some great chemistry”.

“It really helps having a team that believes in what we are doing and continues to fight for each other, especially when the conditions, both weather and playing in another city, are against us.”

He also cites the efforts of manager Jake McRae, physio Sarah Ward and coach Mingi So.

“Jake made our trip to Sydney easy and is very good at dealing with anything that comes up, always accommodating the team. Sarah was really busy this year making sure we could all make the game and she came over for gameday. She is such a crucial part of the team. And Mingi worked hard to make sure we were ready and set us up really well to win.”

The side has been keeping a close eye on local heroes the AFC in the A-league, noting there’s now an additional pathway for top footballers. Two UoA footballers are already in the Auckland FC squad, Finn Mckenlay and Oliver Middleton, who were unavailable for the Wollongong match because of their AFC commitments. Both players, along with Jackson Jarvie (NZU20 in 2023) are part of the University’s High Performance Support Programme.

It’s a monumental achievement for the team to return to China, representing the University of Auckland and Oceania while competing against teams from around the world. The captain wants to make the trip count.

“I have loved the opportunity to represent the University in football over the past few years,” says Connor. “We have some great memories from China in 2023, and I can't wait to head back there in 2025 – and improve on our previous result.”