2012 OFC Nations Cup Solomon Islands

euros start tonight... football focus shift should do it

also fed vs djokovic

ABs test tomorrow night

plenty of other sport to occupy the mind :)

I cant believe we brought on rojas and brokie on pitch that was more akin to a ploughed field. Should have brought on fallon and lumped it long and watched the NC defense squirm.

If Tahiti or New Caledonia wins the OFC Nations Cup will it benefit their football teams though because they don't play enough matches, also when they play in the FIFA Confederations Cup they will be losing matches by cricket scores.

Well that was shiite wasn't it?  A big Congratulations to NC. Hope they go on and win and do OK at the Conf Cup. Would love to see a combined PI team in the A-League, as was mooted last year....there is real talent up there.

Some other points

1, Why does it seem Ricki has one size fits all tactically. We play 3 at the back vs Italy AND New Caledonia....go figure that!! How about trying to keep the ball for a while and try and play creatively

2, We don't have as much depth as we think. Midfield looks woefully thin. We can't rely on Vicilich for much longer. Can we also find a RB soon please.

3, Major F**kup from NZ football. Why didn't they figure that $1.3 mill from Concup qualification > cost of hosting this tournament in NZ and giving the lads a hugely better chance of winning in.

4, Major setback in our WC prep. The ConCup would have given us top match experiance on the World stage...now NZF are going to have to pay to get us games against lesser sides.

5, Without degrading the PI sides this is kind of embarrasing for NZ football. I will be steering well clear of any Aussie football sites for a while.

6, On the good side this might be the wake up call that the AW's need. We have done really well over the last year or two. This is a major reality check. The players should now realise where they stand and how much hard work needs to be done to get through for qualification.

Neither.  Thus, I've decided to go rate them.  I paid for, and watched almost all of this shit.  So I think I'm entitled to.  I'm just so pissed off at the moment.  Please add, or slate these ratings as you feel fit...

Paston: The only one to emerge unscathed - at least in terms of pride.  Or was he faking it?  [giggle, giggle]  7

Gleeson: Looks a decent enough stopper.  Less so on the crosses.  No more dribbling plz.  5

Smith, Sigmund, Vicelich: Any defence that concedes four goals againsts the PIs - and should have conceded several more - needs to take a good hard look at themselves. 4

Bertos: Started promisingly against the Fijians.  Then started giving the ball away around the halfway line, which in turn led to the humungous Fijian counter-attacks starting.  A really shocking sight, that one.  Tried hard against Solos, and today, I spose.  5.5

Lochead: Someone counted to seven today (Lochead passes that went to the opposition).  And when he did do a good cross - Smeltz's head was at the end of it. 4

Clapham: Nice player.  Maybe in rugby.  Didn't really see enough of him for a fair rating.  But that push could have been disastrous, really (ie., not even making it out of the group disastrous).  3.5

Killen: One nice pass against the Fijians.  But pretty lethargic overall.  After the Rojas "tackle", his moment of dithering and pass that went straight to a Fijian (in about the 3rd minute) was the tournament's first "uh-oh - something's not right here" moment. 4

Brockie: One decent cross.  And one truely abysmal one.  4.5 (maybe generous there)

Mcgee: Normally such a classy player for CMM.  Spose he's never encountered Solomon-like conditions before.  Maybe it was the pitch?  Can't remember anything really - other than the crossbar.  Which is bad.  4

Kosta: "Had a gr8 tournament" according to Miles Davis.  One, maybe two, nice touches during the tournament.  But if he's playing like this in Ruskie Town.  He'd have to watch his back, I'd imagine.   3.5

Rojas: Was absolutely brutalized by Fuckatowelysau's mates.  Seeing him writhing on the ground after one tackle was probably the image of NZs tournament for me.  But at least tried to inject something against NC.  I'd love to see him do nothing, but lift weights and bulk up during the off season, coz he is a real talent.  4.5

Wood: Scored a couple.  Wasted a couple.  When you thought something might seriously happen - was ALWAYS dispossessed.  Kind of like Bertos (usually).  Frustrating. 5

Smeltz: Apart from a couple of PNG magic moments, was fucking shocking.  And offside.  "The heat makes us play bad".  It's tough being a striker, but an unforgivably bad miss today.  If scores against the Nix this season.  I might puke.  3

Fallon: I know he's not exactly Zico, and many here aren't his gr8est fans.  But probably could have fucked up some of these Islanders if given more chances.  These guys don't like it up 'em.  You have to go with what's right on the day.  Just my opinion.  4.5

Olympic Glory Hunters: 0

Wednesday's B-Team: Seemed ok - for about the first 20mins.  4

Good to see comments are getting slightly more reasoned. Agree with most of this ^

Sorry for jixing everything. I won't prodict the CONCACAF Fourth Round team.

Deary me. They better not fuck up the next WC qualification round. 

I'm still so pissed off.  All those people who said this would be a walk in the park should feel shame.  It's absolutely disgraceful.  If we don't make the intercontinental play off, I think I could actually implode.

Will cheer on NC or Tahiti at Confederations cup.

For the professional Turf Managers on here (I know there are some), what are there thoughts re the surface? I thought for the 1st few days it was fine then went down hill very quickly and became marginal at best over the last couple of days.

How do people think the loss of the Confeds money will affect NZ Football as a whole i.e. our World cup campaign and grassroots football?

Why should we feel ashamed? We wern't the ones who lost the match.

How epensive?

More than the cost of maintining an Asian WC campaign if we were in that Confed?

have any of the players but up reactions on Twitter or anything?

@ShaneSmeltz

"One of those disappointing days in football.. It hurts! Team has to move on & learn from it. Put it right for next stage of WC qualifiers."

@TommySmith

"Very disappointing result and performance. We will bounce back and learn from this experience and be a stronger squad for it #AllWhites"

"Need to make sure we nail 3rd spot and then regroup for the next stage of qualifiers. Conditions will favour us more in a home and away comp"

"Thanks for all the support from both NZ and Eng, it's all greatly appreciated and we will give you all something to cheer about!!"

I didnt say Clapham was a professional. I was implying that these teams have better AMATEUR players than the AMATEURS we have in our own side. And lets be honest here, there are plenty of players in the A-League who would struggle to contain some of the guys we've faced in this tournament.

Its stupid, the rest of the footballing world laugh at us when we turn up to a world cup with amateurs in a squad worth a collective salary of less than maybe a single player on the French bench, but we have the cheek to smart on some of these other countries with amateurs just because we've got a few more pros on the pitch than them?

a lot of this loss and crap play has to be layed on the shite prep. Arriving in the solomons with no time to aclimatise was plain dumb - was that Ricki's call or was it NZFC being cheap pricks again. Either way someone needs to answer for the abmissmal performances. A club med social team should not be downing us 2 - 0 EVER!

When we are the much dominant side on paper, shouldn't we try keep possession? Both games we just hoofed it away and our defense was run ragged. Like I said earlier, Tommy Smith was so poor in the game yesterday.

I'm a bit surprised at how little of the bile being spewed in this thread has been directed at Ryan Nelsen and Winston Reid.

The thought of those two ambling out to play a few meaningless exhibition games at the Olympics when they weren't available for this is really pissing me off right now.

And before anybody else says it, yes, I'm sure their clubs didn't want them to come (does Nelsen even have one?), and I'm sure that NZF and Herbert could have also pushed the issue a bit harder, but at the end of the day if the players had wanted to be here they would have been. These were World Cup Qualifiers ffs, and they are currently in their off-season. Injured? Yeah, right.

Maybe Nelsen and Reid might want to put their hands in their pockets and chuck NZF a spare $1.3m?

Tactically I thought we were f*kd.

This I think is Ricki's big problem, though sometimes it works out ok for him.

Our plan was clearly to score early and then hang on to the lead. Problem being we didn't score early. There was no plan b until after they scored 60 minutes in. I didn't think bringing them on was the problem, just that it was left too late. Brockie has had a hand in two of our FOUR goals this tourney. I would have had him ahead of Leo, despite him having some good form earlier too. Rojas always has game changing potential.

It's oddly reminicent of some phoenix games- like with Lia at left back (IIRC) he never gives up on an experiment even if it isn't working. Sometimes it comes right, but here it clearly didn't.

It seemed fairly clear that the strange formation with Wood and Smeltz on at the same time, with Lochy, Kosta, McG and Leo wasn't working. Leo wasn't hitting crosses well. Kosta and McG weren't getting into the game, and Kosta gave up the ball too easily. It seemed like there was no base for our attack, and that the attack was flaky and uncoordinated.

They beat us by retaining and spreading possesion and then some creativity up front. We had no creativity up front and didn't look threatening with the ball at our feet until Marco and McG started to combine at the end.

We got outplayed and outcoached. That is more the embarrassment that a side stacked with players allegedly playing at the top levels all over the place got made to look, or just looked so ordinary.

Didn't think Killen was terrible, but we clearly miss having a player who is a midfielder. Stange strange decision to play him there. With Vicelich and Killen as two of our defensive 4 we were definitely taking a risk.

The plan really didn't work. No early score and then no plan except to keep bombing it long and hoping something would work.

Hmm...yep. I'm sure a contribution of a weeks wages from everyone involved in the debacle well not getting us up to $1.3 mill might not hurt. That includes you Ricki.

Though I guess Big Sam has got a point- the Fijians go studs first through Paston's head and stay on the park (was it even a card?), Bertos gets axed from behind twice and no card why would he want to risk Reid who got injured last time he was here? Seems at times like the licence given was far too much- though perhaps we needed to dish it out in return. Hard to say...

wow you target clapham above all the other useless has beens in the AWS, yet he outplayed chris killen in the same position no arguments. top observation though, lets start mcgeorge

This. 

After watching the game yesterday I was pretty close to sending Reid a tweet (after he posted something happy that wasn't related to AWs) along the lines of 'nothing about AWs? Hope you're actually injured because we could really have used you in the OFC cup' but thought better of it. 

Where have I said anything different? Whoever gets there, they will be hammered - if they lose all three by the scoreline you mention they should be thanking their lucky stars. And that's not going to be good news for OFC either.

It would still be bs if FIFA took away Oceanias spot,a confed cup that is missing a confederation is stupid. Not to mention It would hold Oceania back. 

Id like to think that wouldn't happen,but it's not like it hasn't been rumored before. No smoke without fire etc. 

This result could be a positive thing for Oceania,if it weren't for that threat. 

I thought Tim Payne was the best midfielder we had.

At least we have an Olympic tournament to (hopefully) turn things around. 

They won't take away the Confederations Cup spot, but it could well result in a much tougher qualifying path than we've been facing lately. UEFA in particular tends to lobby against OFC, arguing OFC have a too easy qualifying campaign to get to the World Cup, and this will just give them more ammunition.

Bear in mind that FIFA and UEFA haven't been exactly seeing eye to eye over the last 10 or so years, and I'd hate to see OFC become a convenient compromise FIFA offers to UEFA.

That's really a Mickey Mouse tournament in footballing terms.

Think NZ Football (Van Hattum and the whole Board) need to come up with a please explain for what is one of the worst stuffups in our footballing history.   

I don't blame the players, and I don't even blame Herbert if he privately was against preparing for this tournament in the United States. How on earth could NZ Football agree to playing such an important tournament on one pitch.

It was clear to anyone watching the first 2 games that our players were physically spent after half an hour of each game.

For whatever reason (pitch/travel/heat/poor accommodation etc etc) they were playing the last hour of every game with their legs completely gone. New Caledonia completely deserved their success, and none of it should come as a surprise.

Some very good New Zealand and Australia sides have struggled playing up in Oceania for decades. Tahiti and New Caledonia have always had players with excellent technical skill. Van Hattum, Turner and Herbert should know all about that from their own playing days. Pity those Oceania countries haven't had the funding and travelling game experience to learn how to play away from home.  

The seeds for this outcome have been sewn for a while now. Through circumstances, Ricky Herbert has this ridiculous dual role of being Phoenix coach and New Zealand coach. No coach in the world is good enough to do this - let alone Herbert. Now, just when the Phoenix need a fully focused Herbert to spend wisely and get a championship winning side together, he is clearly going to be distracted by All Whites world cup demands. Vice versa. Don't blame Herbert for taking the opportunities on offer. His man management skills during the immediate post Serepisos days are to be admired. If you believe half what's now dripping out through the grapevine here in Wellington, they are to be totally admired. 

NZ Football needs to stop doing its FIFA gravy train victory laps, and get back into reality. How they could agree to the terms and conditions for this Oceania tournament wreaks of arrogance, and they deserve this result. They need to do a deal with the Phoenix now, to take Herbert on fulltime. Or get an overseas coach in - or even fast track Nelsen.  

i agree to an extent,payne did show promise. mcglinchey underwhelmed

the way we play 343 is not made for outplaying teams. 

We need a midfield. I always thought Payne was a striker but he did alright. I'd look to start playing a back four with Siggy at right back. Vicelich or Keat to play in that deeper midfield role, preferably Keatsy depite not seeing much of him since high school footy. We have no other options in that role. 

Mcglinchey may need to play wide right like he does for CCM. Or in a midfield 3 as the furthest forward. He got closed down too fast to be effective

Unfortunate for us that Nelsen and Reid don't see it that way.

Boy, they better front for all of our home/away WC qualifiers, especially the games in the islands.

Don't really think it has anything to do with how they view the respective tournaments, but rather with convenience.

One tournament is in a hellhole in the middle of your time off, the other one is in the city you live and play in.