New Zealand Men's U-20s

Jordan Spain, a first choice fullback in qualifying, would be one of the unluckiest to miss out.

Younger brother of Dragons player Aaron.

Plays for Cashmere Technical in the Mainland Premier.

Dragons Youth this past summer in the National Youth League.

Moved to Auckland to crack the u-20's and played for Eastern Suburbs Youth in the 2017-18 National Youth League.

Very highly rated in Christchurch football circles and mentioned here as someone the Phoenix should be looking at.

Interesting that NZ is treated with more respect at FIFA u-20 mens finals these days.

We were seeded in Pot 2 for the draw (of four pots) with Italy, Colombia, South Korea, Nigeria and Mali.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_FIFA_U-20_World_Cup#Draw_and_schedule

And ahead of Pot 3 countries like Argentina, Senegal and Ukraine.

Reasoning:   "The hosts Poland were automatically seeded into Pot 1 and assigned to position A1, while the remaining teams were seeded into their respective pots based on their results in the last five FIFA U-20 World Cups (more recent tournaments weighted more heavily), with bonus points awarded to confederation champions."

Notably, reigning U-20 champs England, Germany, Spain and Brazil failed to qualify.

In UEFA qualifying, a prelminary group stage played by all UEFA countries qualified teams for the "Elite Group Stage"

Elite Group Stage comprised seven groups of four countries, each group played in one country.

The winner of each group advanced to the UEFA u-20 Finals, joining hosts Finland

Despite hosting their group, Germany lost out to Norway (Holland finished bottom of that group)

Spain also failed to even progress to the UEFA u-19 finals.

Nope, Bazeley + Emblen as a matter of fact. This squad is far more talented than their 2015 one

Four Oceania match officials are going to Poland but not one Kiwi:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_FIFA_U-20_World_Cup#Match_officials

No Aussie officials either amongst the twelve AFC officials going.

Some bias in their confederations against Australasian officials possibly?

It sucks for the guys that missed out, any other year and they would be in but the talent coming through this year is phenominal and really good to see. 

I hope this can be sustained or improved across the country in years to come and it doesn't get dominated by Ole and Phoenix Acadamy reps every year, need the South Island acadamies to step it up too.

I suspect braces was suggesting that to get in this squad players had, not that 'You' had.

Not that this is too much of a surprise, given some of these outfits invite the best players to their stables. I'd be more surprised if there were more than a few that hadnt

he may have been suggesting that to get into this squad players had to have played......

but then he does list pretty much all the top academies in the country it's a bit like saying to get into the ISPS Hand Prem top 4 you had to play for ACFC, Team Welly, Eastern Suburbs or Canterbury Utd!

The best players will be picked up by the best academies... that's just how it is. Players want to train with the best to raise their own standards.

Hope the German and Nederland's players are playing at a higher level and have more consistent form than Stafford Dowling and Seth Clarke, these two guys footed it with Handa Prem men's teams and influenced games.

Hard to tell with foreign academies how players are going. Are youth aged pro teams at a higher level than Handa Prem? Or do they get picked for the foreign club effect? Scottish guy also a mystery - did we poach him from Scotland, or are they not interested for a reason? 

I would suspect the old pro imports in the Handa would be more physical and canny than players in youth leagues - although youth/reserve teams may be faster? Chalk and cheese maybe?

Great to see the quality of players left out of the side - hopefully it means a higher overall standard.

I hear you Sancho - it doesn't make it easy when the Asia Pacific Academy from CHCH migrates to the Phoenix. How is that Russian guy doing in CHCH? The guy trying to get youth playing sport - built that astroturf and football park and all.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/10494249/Russian-businessman-plans-sporting-academy

He’s paying stoopid money to Danny Halligan and players to try to get Chch United promoted into the Mainland Premier League. 

Thanks for the update - I guess investment in local football development in partnership with Mainland football is an overall good thing - keep the investment coming.

It’s his money so fair enough but I can think of better ways to spend tens of thousands on football development than paying has beens and never will bes in an attempt to get out of second div Chch football. But wrong thread for this. 

Do we have any warm up games planned?

The tournament starts in a little over 3 weeks and everything is quiet.

Listen to latest pod with Buckingham. First 30 mins a lot about U20s.

I think Buckingham flies out to Poland this weekend & team follow 2 days later. 3 warmup games from memory.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/nz-teams/112100887/nomadic-under20-football-coach-des-buckingham-has-high-hopes-for-world-cup

NZ-based players + NZ-based players in the wider group have been in Auckland since Monday, Buckingham and NZF's sports scientist  fly out Friday, team Sunday, joined by European-based players except for Michael Woud, who will have about 11 days of the Eredivisie season to go first, on Monday, two warmup games, roughly a week and two weeks into their stay, tournament starts a week after that.

https://twitter.com/rikdog72/status/1127314175967916032?s=21

Ricardo talks to Joe Bell after the 1-1 hit out v SouthKorea. 

Fantastic result, considering most of South Korea's players are regular starters in the K League, and they have a Bayern first teamer and one of the hottest prospects in world football (Lee Kang In from Valencia).

Finding myself leaning more and more towards Declan Edge's POV that we have all the capability in the world to produce top talent. It's an issue getting most Kiwis out to Europe with no visas and all but the future is bright

Nice interview and the article on NZF about the game sounds very positive. Use to hearing statements like, we competed well in these types of friendlies, not 'we probably should have won it". Add the fact we dominated possession as well i am excited to see how the team goes.

3 - 1 win over Mexico. Singh with a double plus we hit the post twice. This team is the real deal!

?

We're going to win the Cup! 

Seriously though great effort. It is so pleasing to see us get results like this even if it is only a friendly... Can't wait till this World Cup kicks off!

Great stuff; bit like the pre-World Cup Serbia result? Great to give them some confidence. That draw against South Korea is nothing to sneeze at too.

If Des does well there, his stock goes through the roof

I like him. He came across as genuine on the podcast. 

He wants to be here in NZ and make it work. I really hope he can stay here and go far with our teams, whether that is NZ national teams or even the Nix.

Joe Bell reckons the team can contend for the title

link?

Looking at the schedule and Tahiti has also qualified; how does that work? Oceania gets 2 entries to the U-20 but only 0.5 to the main event?

Correct.

Age group tournaments are development and promotional for FIFA. Europe have loads of stuff for those age groups, so spreading the love brings in more FIFA dollars. Senior tournament is a different kettle, lots more money by having lots more big players involved. 

Bit surprised there was no report on the Mexico game of any sort at all. Seems like a pretty good result overall for us. Maybe both teams were really experimenting and the result meant little in the greater scheme, but i would have thought that kind of win over a side like Mexico would have been pretty newsworthy... Singhs double adds to that.

A non competitive match. At age group level. On the other side of the world. Involving NZF. 

Newsworthy???

Gordinho, you really should know better. 

Perhaps the fault lies more with the mainstream media.

https://www.nzfootball.co.nz/newsarticle/76982?newsfeedId=760052&newsfeedPageNum=1

https://www.nzfootball.co.nz/newsarticle/77137?newsfeedId=760052

https://www.nzfootball.co.nz/newsarticle/77120?newsfeedId=760052

https://www.nzfootball.co.nz/newsarticle/77030?newsfeedId=760052

https://www.nzfootball.co.nz/newsarticle/76702?newsfeedId=760052&newsfeedPageNum=2

Looking fwd to watching the games live on Sky

I see u20 game is on sky on Saturday but we also have u17 development team playing against China on Saturday night, any idea how to watch that game?

woooosh

Last couple of Panda Cups some of the games were live streamed . 

I've asked team manager to talk with liaison officer to see if there is something official.

If I find out anything it'll be on the NZ U17 thread

Thanks ClubOranje, hopefully lots of youth football to watch over the coming week

Job of NZF is to build the relationships with mainstream media. Putting out media releases is only half the job. 

Agree with this. The media as a whole aren't so naturally interested in football/aware of it so they really need a bit of guidance in what it all means. Though I would have thought the reactions to what the U17 Girls did might have woken them up a little that some of this stuff might be just a little bit newsworthy / worth a mention at least. 

Yup. By flying over and sitting in the stand :-)