All Whites Coach Speculation

Good article in todays NZHerald by Burgess. He too questions why NZF is so obsessed with appointing English coaches. As a kiwi I have zero attachment to NZF. It does not represent my culture. Its run as some sort of insiders club with a strong British slant. In addition their communication is very poor. Why are we as fans always left in the dark?. How about someone from NZF explaining to us why this group of journeyman Englishman were chosen over the other applicants. While they were at it maybe they could explain why we consistently see almost no development program for kiwis in NZ football coaching  programs.

Confirmed in the media today that NZF have not yet decided on a national coach and have not even drawn up a short list. What a crock.... how the heck can you appoint a group of assistants to a person that you haven't even decided on yet? They don't even have to travel too far to see how that can be turn to custard. They are setting themselves up for a fall and putting our money at risk should things go pear shaped and they end up having to get rid of someone because of incompatibility. Its like the central and local government sector who treat money like its their own and not the taxpayer or ratepayer. I'm pissed off knowing about this.

While I'm on my high horse, why the fudge haven't they employed someone by now? we have a window in just over a month and expect someone to come in, get acquainted with the organisation and players at its disposal, select a team and get it ready to play. Talk about setting someone up to fail. This wouldn't be acceptable in the private sector - why are we accepting of it with NZF - fudgeing amateurs......

Suspect the purpose of hiring assistants now is to try stop the type of clear out of assistants that happened when Hudson left. ie New coach just hiring his boys and them going with him when he leaves. 

I’d guess the assistants would have well defined roles that won’t impact with the head coaches job much. It’s not like a club side where they’ll be working side by side every day, with the day to day dressing room dynamics and falling out that can result from that (Darije and Rado). 

They’ll still be based in Wellington, so maybe part of the role is to keep in touch on the progress of Wellington based players, while the head coach is based in Auckland doing the same thing. 

I don’t think this is as much of an issue as it would be with a club side. And like 2ndBest said, it’s stops another Hudson situation. 

I personally don't have an issue with the back-office clear out when a coach does leave. It's far more important for NZF to have pathways defined for players and coaches to reach elite status. If those pathways are monitored and maintained by NZF staff, provided that each coach appointed buys into them, their job - and that of their assistants - is to coach the team and ensure it is competitive on the field.

Appointing assistants before the main coach is doing it back to front. We're not offering a secure WC spot, good exposure, lots of $ etc - so restricting a potential coach's ability to bring his people with him to a new job is only going to turn away good coaches IMHO.

EDIT: left out a word

He two other assistants at one stage. Armstrong and Taylor.

Guess there is also the chance that they won't be the only assistants?

No short list (yet) for the top job according to Heraf. But it's almost Feb and the AWs are due to play in the March international window. How is that going to work? How late can the new man arrive and be part of that selection process? Could his trusty assistants be forced to shoulder that load? (Recall something like that happened to Hudson for his first game.) 
But, but... don't want to belabour the point, but what if the new gaffer really, really, really doesn't get on with his 'pre-selected' assistants? Who would go? (a) The Assistants (b) The New Coach (c) Not-So-Handy Andy? Hmmm, tough call.  
Why do I have such a bad feeling about the way this is all unfolding? 

He also coached the team against Japan. Hope this doesn't happen again actually, the ideal thing would be to already have a coach before the march window

Agree - having a caretaker in charge for just one game would be less than ideal. 

On the other hand - to be fair to NZF - it's the first game of a four-year cycle, so it counts for peanuts.

We play teams in OFC which is less than ideal but no one says anything about that.

I wonder if a caretaker manager for the first game would be allowed to bring back players like Boyd who fell out of favour with Hudson, or would they get the hard word from NZF to 'not rock the boat' pending the appointment of the new man? 

That's why I think we need the appointment of the new coach as soon as possible. If that doesn't happen it wouldn't surprise me if the likes of Reid, Smith, Gleeson, Boyd and co. made themselves unavailable for the march window.

Hudson's new job :)

theres probably a fairly good chance of that happening anyway, no matter who the coach is

Because it sends the wrong message. We want to be competitive, and players should feel they're fighting for spots from day 1 in my opinion. I know it's not going to change things dramatically if Emblen or someone else takes charge of the team for one game. But as I see it, we need to start working to qualify for the next WC...yesterday. Given the amount of games we get in a 4-year cycle, we can hardly afford to waste one.

I do agree though we need a coach ASAP to get a system style of play working, not this hoof ball that Hudson did. 

Heraf is now a big wheel in NZF's coaching setup - junior and senior, men and women. What style has he coached in the past, and what (if anything) has he said since he's arrived about how he'd like NZ teams to play? I sincerely hope he's not a hoof-ball fan. I also hope he can be the 'guardian at the gate' to prevent us hiring some underwhelming Pom to coach the AWs. 

Whilst it's great news that AWs likely have a game(s) in March window (19th-27th March) - I think need to be realistic about who might be available. 

Reid and Wood are currently injured. If they are fit come March their teams maybe fighting for a spot in Europe (Burnley - longshot I know), or fighting to avoid relegation (West Ham still only 4 points above relegation zone). ie there will be pressure from their clubs to be unavailable for meaningless international friendlies, at a crunch time of club season - esp if any internationals are a long plane ride away. I think that is understandable, and really Reid & Wood (plus Thomas) have nothing to prove to any new AWs manager.

Could be different if any friendly(ies) are just a short trip away in Europe, rather than the usual long haul to Asia for an AWs friendly.

Also in March the MLS will be in full swing. Like the A League it doesn't stop for FIFA windows. Sporting KC, Portland, Minnesota, Vancouver & Colorado I note all have MLS games in the March window.

Guys like Smith, Marinovic, Boxall etc maybe won't like the idea of missing a club game so early in the season, and possibly giving a team mate a chance to have a blinder and nick their spot for the season. Again those three have nothing to prove to any incoming AWs gaffer. Others like Colvey, Wynne, Musa, Tuiloma etc may even decide to concentrate on their MLS clubs if fighting for starting/squad spots at season start. Big important club season for all of them, so entitled to be a bit selfish in need come March.

Basically March window could be a chance to bring in some guys like Adam Mitchell, Nikko Boxall, Gleeson, Boyd etc - blokes that have a bit to prove, or are unknown at international level. Nothing wrong with some experimentation so early in 4 year cycle. Will have benefits in long run. Japan game 4 years really put Thomas on the map.

Totally agree that experimenting early on is good and will help us shape up the squad for the remainder of the WC campaign. What annoys me if that we have no guarantee that the new coach, when appointed, won't want to do some experimenting of his own, thus rendering the first international window useless.

Even if by March the new AWs coach is not in place, the FIFA window won't be totally useless (given still no announcement that a game(s) have even been secured) for NZF.

After all his already appointed assistants will be ready & raring to go!

His second game in charge of the Football Ferns: https://mycujoo.tv/fa-thailand?id=11166&t=1h54m4s

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/nz-teams/101111838/all-whites-to-play-canada-in-march--behind-closed-doors

The only interview I have have heard about Herafs football philosophy was quite interesting. He said he is a footballing pragmatist. He mentioned stats that most goals are scored from set pieces or the action immediately following. He was a believer in pressing and counter attack. He said he had mixed views on possesion football as many games are won by the side who does not dominate the possesion stats. So I guess we just have to wait and see what he brings. I like the pragmatism though. A lot depends on what sort of skill level your players have

Esp true for any AWs coach, where have very limited pool of true international quality players, plus invariably limited amount of player contact time, or quality international games. 

Unlike say coach of a Sth American national side with large player talent pool, at least 18 tough competitive games over 2-3 years, and where can have team functioning more like a club side.

One of Hudson's mistakes was confidently spouting his ambitious Biesla tactics, before taking the time to have a more realistic assessment of the job.

I don't have access to my memes right now, but:

STOP TRYING TO MAKE TYLER BOYD HAPPEN
HE'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN

I'd actually be surprised if he doesn't get a look in, personally.  Not saying he's the next Wynton, but he's getting decent minutes and exposure in a league that's miles above the Handy - and still better than the A-League (Ok, to third of the ladder maybe, but still).

Also, he's probably close to his mid-20s so if he was unwilling to commit in the hope the USA might call him, he'd probably reconsider.

According to Wiki he's been capped 6 times for NZ, but I'm not sure any of those were competitive matches and he's actually cap-tied?

So it's not going to be Arnold because of money (here is my shocked face)

And it's not going to be Ramon because he doesn't hold the correct qualifications. 

Certainly looks like it will be an overseas appointment. 

He turned down a NZ call up, the issue hasn't been that NZ doesn't want to play him just the other way around. I'm sure if he called Hudson ALA Moss and Smith and said he wanted to play then he would have been considered.

All the 6 matches he has played were friendlies. Still, I think the hope of getting an USA call might have been vanished by know, he just wasn't committed the way Hudson intended

there's absolutely no way he'll get a US call, i mean a reserve player for a mid table portugese team is so so so so far off their radar it's not funny

this is even though the US are in a state of panic and they've had it with a lot of their current players

the US are bringing in the young guns, much younger than boyd and will build a team around pulisic 

Not the biggest Portuguese football fan out there but I'd like to think I'm pretty knowledgeable on rankings like this - definitely right that there is a huge discrepancy between the big three and the rest, but any Primeira Liga team would absolutely wipe the floor with us. Even Sydney would fight against relegation. It's the tiers below that are really trash however.

Tondela on paper is the weakest squad in the league probably, they would be a lower-level Championship side for context :)

When I had this debate before in the Boyd thread I went and watched highlights of a bunch of random games from there and they looked slow and lacking skill. A lot of random errors. Compared to the Championship it appeared to be significantly lower quality. I'd say these mid league games were the equivalent of the bottom rung of A League games. Sydney look way better than anything I saw.

Attendances are terrible. Players from there don't regularly break into better leagues unless they were with one of the big 3. Likewise, fading stars or experienced top level players don't drop down to it either. It all adds up to not very good.

Here's the first highlights I could find for a Guimaraes game that didn't involve the big 3.

And here's the first Tondela game:

Sure there are some nice passes and moments of skill but there's also a lot of basic errors, poor touches, flat footed defending and so on. I don't see anything to suggest that the best team in the A League would struggle in this competition.

obviously there are so many factors and also many clues

one fairly direct clue is the existence of nick ansel in the tondela squad. this season, he's completed 90 minutes 6 times and is often not in the match squad https://www.transfermarkt.com/nick-ansell/leistung...

whereas he was regular at victory and was highly regarded

just one clue, there will be many more, and i have no idea of circumstance

The attendances are truly shark I completely agree, but that's because almost every non-big 3 team are from tiny towns (<50000) where the team isn't big. Aves is from a town of 8000 for example, Moreirense come from a town of around 4800. Almost everyone in Portugal supports a big 3 team, the smaller clubs to a lot of people are insignificant. (as an aside, there's a team called Nieciecza in the Polish top tier from a town of 750 - just found that out and it's pretty damn astonishing)

I work for EA as a player reviewer and managing editor, mostly for Wellington Phoenix and New Zealand international teams, but it also requires me to keep a keen eye on world leagues. FIFA itself is a very good measure of quality between leagues: here are the ratings of the Portuguese teams according to the database (the number on the left hand column is the overall quality), and here are the ratings of the A-League clubs. These ratings take into account the quality of player at the club, and though not completely accurate (Roar and Jets, jesus) they do show a large discrepancy. Maybe I was a bit harsh in saying Sydney would struggle against relegation considering their squad, but it's hard to see any other A-League club surviving comfortably, especially us. And to be honest, I'd take watching that Rio Ave game over a Roar vs Nix slog anyday lol, our highlights are SO much worse

Even the smaller teams have some quality transfers in - the team you showed, Rio Ave, had Jan Oblak and Brazilian international Fabinho two or three seasons ago. Guimaraes have one of the best U21 wingers in the world in Raphinha, as well as quite a few Portuguese internationals. I’d say that all first XI players in the league would make our first team

Those teams also have a crapton of depth due to no salary cap, zero foreigner/visa limit and a better pool of players to choose from compared to Aus/NZ, so while Sydney might have Mierzejewski and Ninkovic, Guimaraes might have a whole team of Mierzejewskis and Ninkovices