2012 OFC Nations Cup Solomon Islands

Yeah well, maybe they could make themselves available not just when it's convenient for them in future.

Let's not forget how close all our results were in this tournament. It's not inconceivable that we could have gone out of the World Cup altogether.

Absolutely it would have made a difference having Nelsen and Reid.

Apart from anything else it would have been a statement of intent about how seriously we were taking the tournament.

Maybe it could be argued that it wouldn't have strengthened the defence that much, but it would have given Herbert some important tactical options like moving Vicelich into midfield or even putting Sigmund at right back.

And who would you have really preferred to have marshaling the troops in the last half hour against NC? Ryan Nelsen or Tommy Smith?

Do you really think having them on board would have changed things, both of them are used to the weather here (UK) and would also have struggled.  RH keeps falling back on players shown to be out of form/depth in international football (Betos/Lochhead) so I personally do not think it would have made a difference.  Lets not forget we won this tourney last time with out them, Fallon, Weemac, Rojas and Smith.

Fair call about Ivan in midfield, but I feel Ivan should have been the captain and from what I saw while watching the games, it seemed that he was the de facto captain anyway ala Gold Coast and the farce there.

On what basis "Mickey Mouse"? It's a quality tournament, in fact the world u-23 finals with the best u-23 national sides quaifying- or in Europe's case, the best u-21 national sides qualify from the UEFA u-21 Finals (just because they're stubbornly attached to their long tradition of u-21 football) and then they can add players up to age 23 before the finals. And then you have three of the best senior team players from each country. u-21 football is a big deal in Europe, the major youth category used to assess young players for future senior national sides, and synchs easily with u-23 football.

I see the u-23 category as a very useful bridge between u-17 and u-20 international football and the full senior deal. Having full international sides competing at the Olympics is not needed of course as the senior World Cup caters for that.

It's mostly a British prejudice against a tournament they weren't able to enter after 1974 when the FA uniquely refused to acknowledge any distinction between amateur and pro football any more, and to be fair they have a surfeit of football to watch at stadia or on TV or the internet.. Even then about a million Olympic football tickets had already been sold by early May - more than any other sport.

Lots of British fans are seeing it positively on internet forums as a chance to see quality international football in their own cities and regions esp. now England internationals are once more exclusively being played at Wembley.

A positive English assessment of the Olympic Football:

http://calciato.com/2012/04/25/olympic-football-draw-hoped-to-stimulate-ticket-sales/

Brazil are certainly taking it seriously and aren't really making any distintion between their full national side and their Olympic side as they integrate both with the aim of sucess in London and at home in 2014.

See my posts on the Brazil Olympic side's world tour games on ESPN the last month here:

http://www.yellowfever.co.nz/forums/all-whites-and-other-nz-international-teams/new-zealand-u-23s-olympics?page=23

REPLACE HIM WITH A NEW CALEDONIAN !!!!

THE BEST COACH FROM OCEANIA CURRENTLY:

The best manager to ever come out of Oceania is a New Caledonian, Antoine Kombouare who coached Paris Saint Germain, the biggest club in France, 2009 until January this year when the club chairman did a dirty on him whilst they led the league and replaced him with Carlo Ancelotti ex-Chelsea. Previously he'd taken second div. Valenciennes to the top league and coached Strasbourg. PSG appeared in two French Cup finals, winning one, and the Europa League under Kombouare.

Europa Lge Coaching Record: P: 17 W: 10 D: 3 L: 4

Overall sucess % as manager French 1st and 2nd divs. : W: 37% L: 33%

He's recently been linked with the vacant Ghana national team job and Fulham but is still available I think...

Kombouare had a distinguished playing career - he played in the French top flight 1982-1995 for Nantes and PSG (where he won the league and cup) and then for Aberdeen. The defender became a legend at PSG for the winning header he scored in the dying seconds of a UEFA Cup quarter final against Real Madrid, in the 1992-93 season. The header qualified PSG for the semis. His habit of netting tie-deciding headers earned him the name of "Casque d'Or", which means "Golden Helmet" in French. In 1994-95, during a UEFA Champions League quarter final against Johan Cruyff's FC Barcelona dream team, he captained Paris Saint-Germain to a resounding and unexpected 2-1 win which qualified the French side for the semi-final, which they lost to AC Milan.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

BEST OCEANIA PLAYERS OF ALL TIME ?

Despite our obssession with Wynton Rufer's efforts in Europe, in reality there are a few Pacific Islanders who've achieved more  and must rank above Wynton in any list. (At least there's no Aussies in my top three - although they'd occupy the majority of the other top 100 placings...)

My Top 4 Oceania Players of all Time: 1. Christian Karembeu (New Caledonia; French World Cup winner 1998)

2. Pascal Vahirua (Tahiti; 23 caps for France incl. Euro '92; French Ligue 1 1985-1999 Auxerre, Caen)

3rd equal. Antoine Kombouare (New Caledonia) / Wynton Rufer (New Zealand)

SEE:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Kombouar%C3%A9

http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/en/antoine-kombouare/aufeinenblick/traine...

http://www.youtube.com/topic/cHit39oEleA/antoine-kombouar?feature=relchannel

"Mon dieu! Les Kiwis mange plus du boeuf que les Anglais !!!

A goal start bet for New Caledonia to win by more than 1 is paying over $6 today. Worth a fiver without a doubt.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/7073955/All-Whites-Oceania-horror-fault-of-officials

While this article does not bring anything new to the table, it does leave McKavanagh with a little egg on his face.

When you consider the $500k cost that was stated to host the OFC Nationas in NZ and the reason why it did not bid plus the $616k operating loss (disguised as a $200k profit) from last year, we would be $200k better off with the cash from Brazil. We would have also acquired 3 international games we would not have had to pay for (and now have to seek replacement football at our cost in the lead up for Brazil if we qualify) and the cost of sending our team to Honiara vs possible contra deals staying here. From a financial point of view, it really is a no brainer which ever way you slice it.

I think we are asking for the wrong head and should be pointing it at McKavanagh and not Herbert. I can live with 1 poor result in 8 years because it does happen to any team. To make such a rookie mistake in your first year though...

Big Pete 65

"It's mostly a British prejudice against a tournament they weren't able to enter after 1974 when the FA uniquely refused to acknowledge any distinction between amateur and pro football any more"

No, you are incorrect: the majority of European countries view Olympic football as an inconvienence, not just Britain. The tournament may be looked at differently by certain South American and African countries and by minnows like NZ, but the reality is that Europeans can't see the point, as they already have the World cup and European champs.

And as for the refusal to accknowledge the distinction between pro and amateur football: this was simply a recognition that the whole idea of Olympic/amateur football teams/comps was archaic and disingenuous. The Great Britain football teams were proper amateurs, something other countries players weren't: for example all the Eastern bloc nations picked teams of "amateurs", when in reality they were professionals in all but name(full time training, paid a wage, but "technically" amateurs because they were part of the armed forces etc). So there was the farcical situation of Britain's  teams being picked from non-league amateurs, playing against the cream of other countries talent(e.g check out the team lists from some countries: some very familiar names.For example the Polish team who won Olmpic gold in 1972: do the names of Lato, Lubanski, Deyna etc ring a bell?) As I said the whole situation was farcical and rather than maintain this charade, the idea of "amateur" and "professional" football was consigned to the dustbin and rightly so. The other problem concerning Olympic football is the distinction of "Great Britain" v "England, Scotland" etc. This potentially opened up a can of worms with Fifa, and rather than bother with a half arsed tournament, the British elected to pull out of olympic football. good job I say...

After a couple of days of letting this fiasco sink in I'm gonna chuck my two cents in. Here are some thoughts about it:

1: It's been said time and again but we desperately need a defensive midfielder or two. Without Elliott and with Vicelich looking past it we have no one who can play that role. Having said that, why the hell would you play Killen there? Madness. If we want to compete with top 50 teams, let alone the Island nations, we need a player who can screen in front of the defense and distribute well. Most of our young mids are more attacking slightly built players so maybe shuffle a defender in there?

2: Related to the first point, the way the 3-4-3 system Ricki uses is setup does not now suit our current bunch of players. I know the argument is often made that the lack of a RB and the plethora of CBs means 3 at the back suits us but I think those days are past. 2 years after the WC Bertos and Lochy are getting too old to cover the ground required of wingbacks and this is especially obvious when playing against teams when we need to force the issue. It showed vs Jamaica and it showed at the OFCNC. When they push up to join the attack our defense becomes vulnerable to counter attacks and we don't have the DM to cover that and hold up play while our wingbacks track back. I think it would be better to play one of our CBs out of position at RB than play 3 at the back without the WBs or DM(s)  to cover it. With 4 at the back we could have wingers who push forward more which would suit our young players coming through: Rojas, Kosta, Brockie could get round the back of defenders or create space to cross for Wood.

3: This loss might actually be a good thing in the long-term because it has exposed these issues with time to address them. The clamour of pundits and fans criticising Ricki's tactics and selection might make him reconsider how he picks the team and tells them to play. Its an epic kick up the arse! If we had scraped through to victory the critique of our inadequacies might not have been so vocal, and these big issues might not have been acknowledged.

4: Is Smith really captaincy material? Did giving him the armband so young put too much pressure on him? Who else could take the armband for the future?

5: Reid and Nelsen should be ashamed of themselves. Both of them presumably could have played but chose not too. These weren't freindlies they were competitive games with real meaning and no player should think he gets to pick and choose which tournamenets he plays in. Its different for freindlies but its a disgrace these guys seem to only want to play glamourous matches.

6: Oceania football is looking healthy and there's clearly a lot of talent in the Islands but one area which is woefully inadequate is refereeing. Some of the calls in this tournament were disgraceful and would have been horribly bad even in a Capital 15 game being reffed by members of the teams playing. Sort it out please, OFC/FIFA.

7: Congrats to New Caledonia and Tahiti for making the final and good luck to whichever one of them goes to the Confeds. The Solomon Islands also were impressive and should be commended. It would be good if these teams could play against other opposition more often too. As much of a shame as it is for an AWs fan to miss out on seeing our boys  playing against the big teams at the Confederations Cup it'll be a great experience for whichever team gets there and hopefully they can surprise a few people.

8: No doubt the heat, humidity and pitch conditions were all levellers but we should still have played better. Football is a low-scoring sport and that greatly increase the chance of an upset but over all 4 games we never looked comfortable or fit, and for the semi most of our staters had had a few days rest.

9: Ricki's not as bad a manager as a lot of people seem to think but he's not as great as others think either. He's good at getting the best out of his teams when they are underdogs but he doesn't seem to do well with being the team which is expected to dominate. He also doesn't adapt to conditions within games when current tactics aren't working. However, the lack of any obvious candidate to repalce him means that he should keep his job but this should be a final warning to him. Another debacle like this cannot be accepted.

Ummm, I think that's all for now...

Nearly time for the 3rd/4th playoff! FIRE UP FARKIN!

I'm not sure about your analysis there Jeff because I think the $1.3m for the Confeds Cup would have had to pay for the entire cost of our participation there, including the need to jack up a couple of friendlies in preparation.

Yes, we lose $1.3m in revenue from not competing in the Confeds Cup but we probably also avoid many hundreds of thousands of dollars of costs also (might be wrong on this, happy to be corrected).

Not that I think that's a good thing. Just saying that I think the financial impact on NZF is not as serious as "we lost $1.3m".

Anyone know where to find text updates of th3/4 playoffe? I'm at work with no credit card so buying the stream isn't an option

Last game in the Solomons, Hey lets try a new formation for once....

Oh, wait. No. Still 3-4-3......... this shit pisses me off.

http://www.oceaniafootball.com/ofc/News/ViewArticle/tabid/125/Article/f5496fcf-643a-49e5-a738-a943f25477bf/language/en-US/Default.aspx

Couple headed goals for Wood. He has a big height advantage over their back 4, he might pick a few more goals up today if we keep crossing it over to him.

Hattrick for Wood.

There is a hattrick for Wood

Hattrick for Wood

terrible finish, but still..... 3-0

SOME CONSOLATION IN OUR OF NEED - MEMORIES OF ITALY'S DISGRACE SOUTH AFRICA 2010:

"ITALY WORLD CUP 2010 DISGRACE": Particularly "Italian soccer fan embarrased by tie to NZ" (now we know how he feels...)

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ITALY+WORLD+CUP+2010+DISGRACE&oq=ITALY+WORLD+CUP+2010+DISGRACE&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_l=youtube.3...28717.44597.0.46436.43.30.1.0.0.4.408.5896.5j7j14j3j1.30.0...0.0.nuPHkvb4VGU

payne looks good.

Only been 1 1/2 games so far, but Payne has looked pretty good in the midfield. I thought he was more of a striker, but since we are short in the midfield, it could be good to develop him into a midfielder.

the ref does not look so good

If there were a drinking game for every time the All whites were called offside, we would all be pissed.

claphams could give bertos some training on setpieces.

3-2 solomons

gleeson woeful keeping. the new reece crowther?

Gleeson "unconvincing"

wood off the post dammit

That or plain shit.

So we basically started with a 4-4-2? Gleeson, Myers, Boxall, Smith, Hogg, Brockie, Payne, Clapham, Rojas, Wood, Barbarouses.

I think if anything, you can probably kiss the starting career of Lochhead and Bertos goodbye and perhaps Ivan as well. On the international stage where pace is king, those guys are now getting passed by younger players. Once you go to what would be arguably a first choice line up of Moss, Reid, Sigmund, Nelsen, Smith, Brockie, Keat, McGlinchy, Rojas, Smeltz and Wood, you have a difficult time finding places for Bertos and Lochhead although Ivan may play that holding spot if no one develops/comes on. Its inherently obvious that Killen is not the answer and all the Brown haters must now be wishing he was still around. We still have to see what Henderson is made of and it would not surprise me if he gets another call up in the next international window. We've got some nice younger players coming through (Scott has fallen out if Myers is the perferred call up - another CB playing at RB) but RB and now DM is a weakness.

Tab giving  7.00 for a draw and 25 for an solomon islands win.

[quote=Jeff Vader]

 Its inherently obvious that Killen is not the answer and all the Brown haters must now be wishing he was still around.

so you are saying we would have progressed to the final if the invinsible man had been playing at DM?