New Zealand Men's U-17s

You always wonder if kids from famous footballing families have been coached, pushed and promoted beyond their natural talent, but Oskar Van Hattum looks like a decent player. Nephew of Frank? Never gave up vs Solomons, chased back to the very end, and looked comfortable on the ball. Sets goals up and scores.

Would like to see someone else have a turn at the set pieces though; Hamilton looks like he's itching to have a go.

Defending corners at the far post seemed to fall to him, and looks like he needs to learn to compete better there - his man scored the first goal vs SI with an outstanding but unchallenged leap, and he was beaten at another far post corner too - but at least got a challenge in.

Generally the corner defending was ineffective and the much shorter SI players were winning everything. Wondering if Lobo, who's tall strong and athletic,  would be better off attacking the ball at corner time, instead of marking the post. #4 could do that, if selected.

Yipe conditions in the Islands esp SI, are always extremely tough for any NZ team, senior or youth.

Naive comment maybe but wouldn’t the boys also be better wearing a white kit, rather than black in the blazing sun?

Losing at half time to PNG 1 - 0. A defensive muck up.

Are the tournaments ever played here in NZ?

Well done in coming through the PNG game with a 4-3 victory. Was dicey for a while, could've been coming home early.

The conditions clearly are very difficult. Good practice for any of them who may be playing in the World Cup in Qatar in 4 years though!!

Wikipedia page on the tournament shows this was held in Auckland in 2009 & 2011. First time it's ever been in the Solomon Islands. We must be due for it coming back here again. 

Boys dig deep today. Could have gone it at half time 4-0 up but it just wouldn’t fall for us. 

Then a moment of careless and 0-1 down.

Started second half well and up to 3-1 after about 20,  

Looked comfortable, made our last change looking like it was just control game to end, but somehow PNG forced a goal

Had to dig deep again and got reward of 2 goal cushion 

Lapse of focus and suddenly 4-3 

Boys dead on their feet at the end but job done

We completely dominated but it goes to show you can’t let your guard down for a minute in this game

Brutally hot and humid, no respite

And FIFA thought Qatar was a good idea...

Poor performance overall vs PNG, finishing in particular. Subs got all the goals (and all the subs scored). Nice to see Old in action; looks promising and nice goal.

Starting 11 for the must-win semi vs Tahiti (Wed 4pm NZ time)? Maybe:

      Paulsen 

Drake  Strong Naicker Lobo

    Manuel   Garbett  Verney

Van Hattum   Hamilton   Wilson

Any advance on that?

Central defence looks the biggest worry; has Lobo played there before? Any other options?

Tahiti are going to trash us big time, They had he harder group stage and didn't struggle at all.

Solomon Island beat Fiji 3-1 to make it into the final and Qlfy for the U17 WC.

Tahiti look bigger more physical and less skillful than Solomons. Tahiti 13 looked dangerous  but not playing -injured?

NZ starting 11 below - would rather have seen Wilson on than Stamenic. Taylor over Paulsen is a surprise too.

Not bad though - NZ to win.

Stream here: https://t.co/SZmYBjGYlF

Good start by NZ, Tahiti look the more affective side going forward.

Nice goal 2-0!.

3-0, And I though Tahiti would dominate this match.

Win 4-1 and we off to the World Cup

Good test of Jose’s coaching skills now to try beat SI in the final, after being spanked 5-0 in their pool game.

Good win, NZ much more dangerous on attack than Tahiti. Scrappy in midfield. Very poor marking by TAH allowed NZ a lot of freedom on attack.

Big improvement by Stamenic; he's got a nice touch and quite impressive today. Caught out a couple of times trying to do too much. Manuel a bit off in H1.

Wilson played with skill and purpose when he replaced Hamilton; really energised the attack. With better finishing and a bit less selfishness up front, it could have been 6-0.

Garbett doesn't look like a CF, possibly wasted playing so high.

TAH goal looked like a goalkeeping howler - free kick that should have been stopped.

Still favour Solomons in the final. Think Wilson will start, and Paulsen.

interesting the heat isn’t mentioned when they win (unless it wasn’t hot ha)

Stamenic looks a good player to me - seems to have a lot of time on the ball and shows good physicality.

Will be interesting to see how we go in the replay against the Solomons.

I read this and thought 'why is he playing for Tahiti?'

Agree re: Stamenic, nice to see, good work rate too. Another decent game from Lobo too, with some dangerous runs forward.

IMO NZ can field a stronger team vs the Solomons on Saturday than in the 5-0 rout. We've got a chance, with a bit of luck. Hope the coach has a word about shooting when you should pass to the unmarked man in front of goal.

And we still look weak dealing with crosses and free kicks to the RH post.

Starting 11...maybe:

           Paulsen

Drake Strong Naicker Lobo

     Stamenic Garbett

         Verney or Manuel

Van Hattum Hamilton Wilson

If they can even draw with Solomon Islands I'd be very surprised based on watching the last match.

Fortunately can't get drawn with them in the World Cup group I guess!

What are you expectng from a bunch of 15 - 16 year olds?

The dominated Tahiti who finished top of their group... ahead of Fiji who gave the Solomons a decent run losing 3 - 1.

A lot would have changed between the first game of the tournament to the one they played to now, like getting a little more use to the heat and developing their comninations further.

I'm expecting a really good, close game... where we hopefully don't gift goals, which we have been doing a lot this tournament. Get rid of those silly errors at the back and I think we can actually win the game. 

My pick 2 - 1 NZ.

Having already Qlfy for the WC I doubt Solomon Islands will take this game serious and should most likely play there bench team.

Think NZ will prob do that same, Solomon Island to win though 4-2.

Disagree - Solomons are at home, they will want to win it in their own back yard... and when was the last time they won a comp at any age level? Plus it will be a sell out... wouldn't be a good look.

Similarly, NZ will be looking to right a few wrongs from game one.

13 was red carded previously game (stupidly)

It was hot, but not AS hot. High cloud cover meant 29 deg, humid with feel-like-temp 32

Previous games 32deg, sunny, humid, with feel-like-temp 39

Big difference there. 

24 hours to the final. 

It’ll be interesting to see the line up. 

Do you give Finn and Ben a start since they’ve had less game time? Give Matt another go at 9 (with instructions to cut it back rather than shoot fri acute angles)? Rest Campbell who’s played every minute, or Oskar who has come off twice when the game is won but been involved in 12 of the 16 goals, maybe bring him on for impact when legs are tired? Start Henry to give him best shout of catching Raphael for golden boot? 2 CDMs and 1 CAM or 1 & 2? 

Go for revenge and the trophy? Or give the wider squad the experience?

Lots of talent throughout the squad. Midfield especially hard to pick

                 Paulsen

O’Conner, Hillis, Naiker, Lobo

                 Manuel

          Stamenic, Aish

VanHattum, Hamilton, Wilson

Final should be streaming here:

https://mycujoo.tv/video/ofc-football?id=24515

and here:

https://www.oceaniafootball.com/tag/live-streaming...

Andrew Voerman  ‏@andrewvoerman Sep 12

Losses by @NZ_Football to Pacific Island nations in under-17 men's internationals, per @Scousek1w1's records.

Andrew Voerman  ‏@andrewvoerman   Sep 18

The coach will likely field what he thinks is the strongest team, and my stab at that is given a few posts ago.

Don't mind who wins - I'd like NZ to win, but Solomons are skillful, good to watch and probably the better team.

Score guess - Solomons 2-0.

Looking forward to it.

Not quite, I feel.

Jose is more likely to field the lineup that has the best chance of winning. 

That is not necessarily 'strongest team' as you need to take into account things like formation to counter their strengths, style we plan to play, our player condition and such like.

The job's already done, Cant see them trying anything other then giving bench warmers a run. Deff change the goal keeper for this match!.

Ouch.
Don't like our chances with this lineup. Five backs picked to strengthen the defence, but far too many errors from Hillis first time round. I'd rather they went with four backs and a strong CDM pairing - say Garbett and Manuel.

Bright was patchy in earlier games, gave the ball away too much.

Van Hattum, Verney and Manuel look like better picks - sick or injured maybe?

Imagine Campbell will play in midfield, rather than a back three. 

You're right AV.

4-1-2-3

Garbett at CF.

Naicker and Hillis at centre backs.

Not confident in this lineup at all.

So we won, Solomon's the better team in second half and won a penalty at 93' and celebrated like they won the game but a good save from NZ keeper meant it finished 0-0. Some weird competition rule meant no extra time so went straight to penalties which we won 5-4.

Even scrappy game. NZ shut Sol down much better this game, and there were only glimpses of the flair Sol showed in the group game.

It could have gone either way with NZ having the better chances early on and Sol better late in the game.

Lobo's been consistently good this tournament - not bad for a 15th grader. Youngest player in the squad? Nice touch, intelligent precise passing and threatening on attack.

Garbett was listed as CF seemed to play deep, and Strong likewise was more like a sweeper or third centre back than a CDM. Both had good games, Garbett esp was very strong and good in the air.

Pleasing result.

Under-17 football at all levels goes straight to penalties, extra time viewed as too much for young kids.

Actually a bloody good effort to come back and win the torny. Good stuff lads.

Agreed - to come back from a 5 - 0 loss in the first game to win the tournament shows a good mentality from the team and the management staff.

Still plenty of work to be done between now and the tournament proper - but at least they seem to have one aspect of the mental part of the game well developed - resilliance.

Interesting statistics from the players GPS trackers;

In the first game (rainy and coolest game but still hotter than NZ summer)  Max Drake apparently ran ~11.4 km, he regularly does over 10km.

Against PNG (probably hottest game) he managed ~8.4, indicative of how energy sapping the heat and humidity was.

Meanwhile, in the final Oskar van Hattum apparently ran a 33.4km/h sprint, which if accurate would have put him 7th in Russia2018

https://www.sportsjoe.ie/amp/football/fifa-reveal-20-fastest-players-summers-world-cup-167154