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Speaker 1: Imagine there'll be a few planes full of Keywi's, particularly

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Speaker 1: Auckland is Dappa is heading over to Melbourne this week

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Speaker 1: in Auckland see the semi final clash against Melbourne Victory

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Speaker 1: on Saturday. Simmis are played over two legs, so you

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Speaker 1: have an away game and then we will have a

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Speaker 1: home game. The team that scores the most goals across

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Speaker 1: both matches will move on to the grand final that's

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Speaker 1: coming at the end of May. Auckland FC CEO Nick

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Speaker 1: Becker with me this morning. Nick, Good morning, morning, right,

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Speaker 1: how you doing really good? Thank you? You must be

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Speaker 1: feeling pretty good about yourself right now. Tell us how

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Speaker 1: important this first league is because it's two legs you've

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Speaker 1: got to get through.

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Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, absolutely, so, Yeah, we're away first and then

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Speaker 2: and finishing first. Then we should have a home semi

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Speaker 2: final on the second leg. But you know, we want

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Speaker 2: to go go there and tomorrow night and really kind

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Speaker 2: of like lay down our intentions. You know, the boys

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Speaker 2: aren't going to take anything for granted, I don't want

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Speaker 2: to speak too many sporting cliches, but they know that

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Speaker 2: they've kind of they've kind of you know, beaten Victory

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Speaker 2: last time. That we met them, they know what they do.

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Speaker 2: We did it there at Abay Park, so they're going

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Speaker 2: to go in with a bit of confidence there and

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Speaker 2: hopefully but if muscle memory reminds them of how to

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Speaker 2: win there, and you know, if we get at least

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Speaker 2: a draw or preferably a win, we'll be in a

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Speaker 2: good position for the following week when we're at home.

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Speaker 1: How do you get a group of people to come

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Speaker 1: together and perform like this in such a short space

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Speaker 1: of time.

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Speaker 2: I think this comes very much from our ownership group.

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Speaker 2: You know, sort of right at the start, we sat

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Speaker 2: down myself, Triment for the football director and Steve coach

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Speaker 2: and a coach and talked about, you know, the type

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Speaker 2: of players that we wanted to time to foot we

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Speaker 2: wanted to play. But Bill was really clear with us

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Speaker 2: and he sort of said, you know, like obviously get

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Speaker 2: the right technically the right players, and make sure that

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Speaker 2: they are good humans. I think that's a really good

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Speaker 2: point to how we've managed to build up a good

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Speaker 2: culture in the dressing room. We've we've managed to get

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Speaker 2: players who they go out and play for each other

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Speaker 2: rather than there's no real sort of individuals, there's no egos,

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Speaker 2: in the dressing room. So there's this really great team

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Speaker 2: spirit and it just comes out the fact that they're

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Speaker 2: all good humans, right, and we've been We've been really

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Speaker 2: lucky in that sense, and I think, you know, we

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Speaker 2: intentionally went out to get good people and we've been

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Speaker 2: really lucky and getting a bunch of preig guys.

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Speaker 1: Some people, and I want to emphasize some, but some

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Speaker 1: on social media have been complaining in the past week

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Speaker 1: about the ticket prices. This is for the second League

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Speaker 1: obviously at go Media Stadium at double twenty seven dollars

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Speaker 1: fifty to forty five dollars upward. I'm assuming the league

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Speaker 1: is taking a cut here, are they?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they're taking one hundred percent cut, right. So yeah,

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Speaker 2: So how the A League works is once you get

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Speaker 2: to the final stage, and this is an ideal for us,

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Speaker 2: the league actually take control of the game so they

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Speaker 2: they can control of the ticket price. I mean, they

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Speaker 2: didn't consult with us, and their position was that they

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Speaker 2: wanted to keep it. Our requests to keep it at

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Speaker 2: go Media. They supported us on this and they and

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Speaker 2: I think they set their ticket prices prices accordingly. We

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Speaker 2: didn't have any real importance into what they could charge

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Speaker 2: of them and sort of saying, look, you know, don't

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Speaker 2: go crazy with it. I appreciate it from a fans

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Speaker 2: point of view, they are more expensive than your regular season.

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Speaker 2: I guess the league's position on it is, it's a

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Speaker 2: big game, it's a semi final, it's a knockout match,

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Speaker 2: and you know they I guess they believe in and

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Speaker 2: they're rightly so that the tickets have been flying off

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Speaker 2: the shower. So we've already sold well over twenty thousands,

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Speaker 2: and I imagine that the whole stadium will be sold

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Speaker 2: out by probably the end of this weekend. So I

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Speaker 2: guess they got that bit right. But yeah, I hear

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Speaker 2: and I conceive both sides of the stories.

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Speaker 1: Yeah I can. Having seen some of those fans up

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Speaker 1: close and personal, I don't think you have any trouble

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Speaker 1: filling out the stadium. Nick, thank you very much and

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Speaker 1: best luck for this weekend.

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Speaker 2: Thanks very I appreciate it.

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Speaker 1: It's Nick Becker. He's the AUK from their c' ceo.

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Speaker 1: The semi final clash in Melbourne on Saturday. Very cool.

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Speaker 1: I mean, how do they how did they do it?

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Speaker 1: The number of records they've broken in one season and

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Speaker 1: to take out the regular seas and they're on their

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Speaker 1: way to Gloria surely. For more from Early Edition with

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Speaker 1: Ryan Bridge, listen live to News Talks it'd be from

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Speaker 1: five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio