The rise of Liberato Cacace
It was not on the football field that Chris Greenacre first witnessed Liberato Cacace’s speed, but in the garden at a barbecue, where he was a surprise guest. A former English professional striker and a player at Wellington Phoenix at the time, Greenacre received a group message from captain Andrew Durante, who was looking for some team-mates to go along to a junior football team’s end-of-season party.
Antonio Cacace, Liberato’s father, was hosting a barbecue for the Island Bay youngsters at their family home and knew Durante through his Italian restaurant La Bella.
So he asked Durante if he would be willing to pop in and surprise the boys.
Not only did he accept, but Durante brought a bunch of Phoenix players with him, Greenacre included. They spent the evening eating food and having kicks with the kids in the backyard.
As it transpired, one of those kids would grow up to become a Phoenix star himself.
‘‘There were quite a few of us and I remember Libby running around the garden,’’ said Greenacre, now the club’s assistant coach.
‘‘We’ve all seen him grow up. Last season there was some footage of him with ‘Dura’ where he looked very, very young and it gave the rest of the squad a bit of a giggle. But it just shows there is a pathway here in Wellington on everyone’s doorstep.
‘‘That’s the side of the club that people don’t see. We’re always wanting to give our time to the community, to the people who give good money to come through the turnstiles to watch the team play.
‘‘There’s a lot of work that goes behind the scenes to try and reach out to these local communities, and keep in touch with the youngsters, because everyone remembers their first team.
‘‘It doesn’t matter where you live in the world you remember your first team and those colours stay with you for the rest of your life, through the good times and the bad times.’’
Cacace will today become the youngest player in the club’s history to play 50 A-League games, when he takes the field for the fourth-placed Nix against bottom-placed Central Coast Mariners in Gosford.
It is yet another milestone for the 19-year-old defender, who has enjoyed a rapid rise since making his debut in a 4-0 defeat to Sydney FC in 2018, when he was a year 12 student at St Patrick’s College.
Cacace is now the first choice left back for both club and country and is considered by many to be the best player in his position in the A-League.
‘‘We thought there was a point where it was kinda sink or swim and we thought we’d give him a go and see if he could cope in the A-League, and you know he hasn’t looked back,’’ Greenacre said.
‘‘He’s been able to take it to the next level where he’s been able to cement the position and hold onto the jersey. With that comes a lot of hard work in training on a daily basis to try and solidify any position in the starting XI. He’s certainly on the right trajectory.
‘‘To play 50 games is a fantastic achievement and a personal achievement for Libby, but knowing Libby he’ll just take it in his stride, like ‘yeah it’s 50 but we’ve got to win on the weekend and it’s all about Central Coast Mariners’.
‘‘For us, for his family, and all the people around him it’s a nice little milestone and hopefully he’s here to make the 100 and we get more out of Libby.’’
Greenacre said Cacace was a consistent performer for the Phoenix reserves and had been knocking on the door for some time prior to his debut.
‘‘He was playing in a back three, I played him as a left-sided centreback and it was interesting because a lot of teams couldn’t deal with him.
‘‘The way he dribbled with the ball, as soon as the ball came out to him he was able to break that first defensive line and then before you know it, he’d be on the edge of the opponent’s box.
‘‘He has that strength and composure where he gets into the opponent’s half of the field. He’s now getting on the scoresheet and getting a couple of assists to his game, and that’s just developed and developed the higher he’s gone to play, and its gone to the A-League now.
‘‘But to get to the next level he still had to improve and for a lot of young players it’s their game understanding and developing his role in the team. He played as a wingback last season, which is a different role to how he plays as a fullback this season so he’s had to adapt his game, which is great in the long-term because he’s learning to play different positions.
‘‘He’s still young and he’s still got a lot of stuff he needs to work on. Like all of the young players, he’s not the finished article, but he’s well on his way. There’s things in his game where he knows he needs to improve and to be fair he spends extra moments on the training ground afterwards, doing extra crossing. He’s trying to improve every day and long may that continue and that attitude continue.’’
Although Cacace was thrown into the deep end in his debut season, he certainly held his own, even against some of the A-League’s more prominent attackers.
Greenacre recalled a 2-1 win over Melbourne City in Auckland, when he had taken over as caretaker coach. Cacace was tasked with marking Daniel Arzani, who had been a revelation for City and would go on to play for the Socceroos and sign for Premier League giants Manchester City.
‘‘The Arzani game we played up in Auckland, what happened was the first time Arzani got the ball he turned Libby inside out and I thought in that moment that he’s going to be in for a tough evening, because Arzani was playing very, very well then, he was playing with lots of confidence, he was scoring and he was tearing teams apart,’’ he said.
‘‘But Arzani didn’t get past Libby once after that. It was like it was a shock wake-up call for Libby, but he made the most of the occasion and I think it showed really strong character and self belief.
‘‘You’ve got one of the top young players in the competition playing for Melbourne City with all their razzmatazz and you thought ‘this kid’s not bad’ and Libby took his game to another level. I thought he was the man-of-thematch that night and I think Warren Joyce put Arzani on the other wing because he couldn’t get past Libby.
‘‘He caught a lot of people out because they didn’t really how quick he was or how strong he was. He will get you defending your own box and doing the running you don’t want to do.’’
While the Phoenix have produced other promising players in the past, including the likes of Marco Rojas and Sarpreet Singh, Cacace is the first Wellington-born star to come through the academy who grew up supporting the club as a boy, and that is something Greenacre said the Phoenix were extremely proud of.
‘‘I think it sends a clear message out, the work that has been done at the other levels of the club. Players are coming into the academy now and can see there’s a clear pathway that I can make it in the A-League and potentially go overseas, like Sarpreet Singh.
‘‘But it’s for parents too. They can see that their child can make it in the pro grade and can do it right here on their doorstep in Wellington.’’
achievement of her father Jim, who topped the premiership in 1994-95.
With success at the top level comes international opportunity. While her fellow Kiwi jockeys were focused on the NZ Derby at Ellerslie last Saturday, Allpress was blazing a different trail.
Invited to ride in the inaugural Kingdom Day Jockey Challenge, a curtain-raiser to the world’s richest race, the $20m Saudi Cup, Allpress was competing against the best jockeys in the world in Saudi Arabia.
Far from overwhelmed by an opposition which included the likes of international superstar Frankie Dettori and American Hall-of Famer Mike Smith, Allpress went out and did what she does best, winning her first race aboard Matmon in the four-race challenge, creating history in the process.
Like most of her contemporaries, Allpress doesn’t identify herself as a female jockey, she is a jockey.
Alongside her in Saudi though, were women from other racing jurisdictions where the struggle for true acceptance is on-going.
Mickaelle Michel, who tied with Allpress for third overall, became the first woman to top the French jockeys’ table (although she was later overtaken). Michel has a lengthy list of ‘‘firsts’’ and has been a beneficiary of a weight allowance introduced by France Galop in 2017. The intention of the allowance was to encourage trainers to provide women with more opportunities, and while some debate whether this was a good thing it does appear to be creating the expected boost.
The counter argument would be that women have managed to succeed on their own terms without such assistance in other countries.
Yet nowhere else in the world appears to have the same level of involvement and acceptance as New Zealand.
Julie Krone, who was the first woman inducted into America’s National Museum of Racing and Hall-of-Fame, remains the only woman to win a Triple Crown race. Krone took out the 1993 Belmont Stakes on Colonial Affair.
That record is likely to remain for some time as American statistics indicate that only two per cent of women ride in races such as the Triple Crown events. Women make up 14 per cent of American riding ranks.
In New Zealand there is just one race at the top level which has eluded female jockeys and that is the NZ Derby. They came close to ticking that off last Saturday when Danielle Johnson, currently sitting eighth on the premiership, rode Scorpz into third place.
While our nearest neighbours in Australia made a big deal about Michelle Payne’s victory in the Melbourne Cup in 2015 aboard 100-1 outsider Prince of Penzance, women jockeys across the Tasman have to be tough to get to the big stage.
Payne’s post-race interview went around the racing and sports world, as she called out chauvinism in racing and told critics ‘‘they can get stuffed if they think women aren’t strong enough’’.
Her win was about more than a horse race and a cup. ‘‘I feel like there was some [higher] reason for me winning and I think it’s to do good with it. I felt
that straight after the race – when I got off the horse and was being interviewed I could feel there was more to this than my achievement of winning the Melbourne Cup.’’
With around 30 per cent of Australian jockeys now female, and female apprentices outnumbering males in Victoria, there are now more opportunities. In regional areas, and particularly Western Australia, the women dominate, but numbers at city meetings in Sydney and Melbourne are noticeably lighter.
Last October, ex-Kiwi rider Linda Meech was controversially ‘‘given the drag’’ off Group One Victoria Derby contender Thought About That in favour of a ‘‘better performed’’ male jockey. A Twitter scrap ensued, with Payne quickly jumping to Meech’s defence and earning herself a fine. Meech, although disappointed, just kept chipping away.
Just two weeks ago, having ridden her first G1 winner in 2015, Meech became the first female to win the G1 Oakleigh Plate at Caulfield. Significantly, she fought off a challenge from another female jockey, Jamie Kah.
But, like those in other parts of the world, the Aussies are still battling a certain level of sexism.
A recent study undertaken at the University of Liverpool, analysing data over a 14-year period, determined that the performance of female jockeys was equal to that of the males.
Unfortunately, in the UK, where 11.3 per cent of jockeys are women, they do not appear to receive the same opportunities as they do in New Zealand.
During the timeframe of the study only 5.2 per cent of available rides went to female jockeys, which has prompted the British Horseracing Authority to attempt to address the issue through its Diversity in Racing Steering Group.
On International Women’s Day the racing industry can be proud of the fact that we consider our jockeys just that.
Like Lisa Allpress, we don’t differentiate based on gender.
Mary Burgess is a corporate communications and media adviser for NZ Thoroughbred Racing