Andy Martin - All you expect and less

NZF are only partly to blame for the ranking. The team and Hudson have to take some blame too for failing to beat teams like Myanmar and Thailand. Rankings are calculated over the last 4 years too so the current ones include the horror in Honiara and our losses to Mexico. 

As Patrick said we can expect to leap up the rankings next time if we win the OFCNC. The Honiara results will also drop out of the equation then too.

NUFC do you know Hudsons salary by any chance?

Totally agree

Meanwhile over the ditch

"After big wins over Tajikistan and Jordan last month, the Socceroos have climbed 17 spots to No.50 in the world, becoming the second-highest ranked team in Asia."

Definitely going to go two years without a game in New Zealand, the last game was on the 30th May 2014.

2015 was the first year since 2005 we didn't play a home international. 

Growing the game. Sure.

And what was the money earned from the 2010 World Cup spent on? I remember Ricki said at the time that they would not make the same mistakes as in 1982 again and would use the money to improve things. Yeah, right!

Has Martin resigned yet? No news.

Is a resignation the right option though? I mean they're dropping the ball and could be doing better, but he's had 12 months to sort out what was already a shambolic operation - not a huge amount of time.

EDIT: Also do we have perspective of what the NZF Board will be measuring his performance against? Because for all intents and purposes he might be doing well by their standards.

But instead of sorting it out he's made it worse.  NZ Football is worse off by every metric I can think of than we were 3 years ago.

But the ASB premiership is televised!

Martin (PO179CAEWS - pick of 179 candidates after extensive worldwide search) was appointed December 2013 and took up office Feb 2014, so +2 years in the job now.

Regarding lack of AW games at home - is there any other country in the world with such a record?

Syria have managed 14 games in the last year - they are playing their home games in Oman

They even managed a friendly with Iraq!

With the slight difference of NZ not being embroiled in a civil war which has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions.

Sorry, I know that's facetious - but guess my point is, even though we don't have it exactly easy in terms of organising All White internationals here, it surely it can't be that hard to organise at least one game a year.

With the exception of our fellow OFC nations, every other country has regular home fixtures through either their confederation championship qualifying or world cup qualifying. 

We don't have qualifying for our confederation championship, and if we were to follow the lead of Conmebol, who also don't, and have all 11 (10 in their case) teams play H&A qualifiers for the WC to fill the resulting gaps, it would be a mess.

Outside of that - for the 3 or so dates where friendlies are a go - we'd have to be one of the most out of the way destinations, especially with regard to the football hub that is Europe, so, yes, it is that hard. 

Our recent games have mostly been vs east Asian nations, where it actually benefits us to go there, and meet our international-based players halfway, rather than requiring them to come all the way back to NZ.

I am still trying to fathom turning down Russia. That could haunt us in the future as I don't think we will get a second invite.

I believe Martin's working on us joining the Brisbane Premier League* next season as a guest international X1.

''Kiwi Casuals'' maybe.

*Not the Queensland Prem.

Exactly - who said anything about Europe? Getting games here against European opposition is a pipe dream, forget about that.

But attracting sides from South East Asia and even OFC should not be that hard, and like you say, could be done on the cheap with players playing in this part of the world. 

Alternative theories- A rugby chap trying to kill off round ball, a banker not wanting to spend to make, the national team has been sacrificed for a televised league...help me out here

can't think, ridiculous not to have had a game for so long. criminal

Alternative solution - two AW teams, or rather two different selections.

Try and get European friendlies in Europpe and call up our Euro based players for them, like Jamaica and other nations do.

Then have a NZ based A-League/NZ AW's to play Pacific teams - home games, experience for Nations Cup.

Then best of both for the actual tournament/qualifier stuff.

That way you're flying the management/physio team to Europe, rather than shuttling players back and forth.

fixed

This would be a common scenario.

You're an East Asian team, and you've got two slots available in an international window.

One is taken up with a Asian Cup or World Cup qualifier, either at home, or somewhere else in Asia

The other is free for a possible friendly

A trip to New Zealand to fill that fee slot, whether before the qualifier or after, is a whole lot of bother, for next to no gain. A bloody hard sell, and it would be even if they had two free slots.

As for OFC nations coming here for friendlies vs local selections - no city is gonna want to host those, they're gonna lose $$, the OFC nations seem (based on their blank schedules historically) mostly reluctant to spend the $$ they would have to, and we'd be debasing the All Whites by sending out a subsection of players.

Is a trip to NZ really that much bother for an Asian team? Myanmar played Oman or someone like that and had a 16 hour flight back to Myanmar before playing NZ. A lot of managers are keen on doing the long distance trips as it gets the players used to what could be coming up (a bit like NZ were supposed to organise a friendly in the USA then at home before the Mexico game)

On the OFC nations are they going to lose money? Fiji in South Auckland would get a huge crowd due to the number of Fijians, smaller places like Mt Maunganui, Gisborne, New Plymouth, Napier, Palmerston North & Nelson would get reasonable crowds. Find a sponsor and do a bit of promotion and you shouldn't lose money

Agree with that.

Also, on 'debasing the All Whites' - have you seen where we are in the rankings? 

Playing the best players who play in NZ and Aus would still mean you've got a fairly decent squad.

Moss

Fenton Messenger Roux Doyle

Kostas  Hudson-Wihongi Mcglinchey Rufer

Smeltz Rogerson

Subs: The U20/U23 squad and Weenix.

Fixed that for you

What I like about this is nobody's saying the idea's shark, but instead are proving there's some strength in depth.

Sub Rogerson for De Vries.

Adams and Eagar would be options for CB too

Agree

Dear Yellow Fever,

Anthony is putting the finishing touches to the training squad for the Nations Cup. We've run into the odd spot of bother, but nothing we can't overcome.

• Anthony needed a bit of help having to eat humble pie and recalling MISTER Durante
• wedding plans
• pesky European clubs who don't want to release players for a training camp
• Good news is that apparently there is an Ipswich in Queensland (phew, that would have been embarrassing, what?)
• ...and they have a football team that will give the chaps a jolly good old workout
• I'm still yet to sort a major sponsor after over 27 months/800 days in the job
• thank god for jetstart friday frenzy deals to the gold coast
• the world map in the office seems to be missing the Scandanavian countries bit, sorry about that
• New Guinea is damn hot but we know what we're doing, we've taken advice from our very, very good friends at OFC and especially those helpful fellows in Honiara 
• player eligibility. Our lawyers inform us we are all ship shape and tally ho. hip hip hoorah for that!
• thanks for all your support in anticipation

Got to go, Anthony wants me to spellcheck his CV

Best,

Andy

PO179CAEWS - pick of 179 candidates after extensive worldwide search

I give him his dues, for all the crap and screw ups, he still has the arrogance to stay in the job when most others would have resigned with embarrassment. How much more will this clown continue to drag us down like his predisessors have?

it's mildly amusing that in the first 6 months of the Hudson and Martin era NZF went on PR overload. Press conferences to discuss the strategy, interviews etc. Amazing how quiet they have become in that they turn down media requests now. 

GG you raise such a good point re sponsorship. Martin is not here to coach but to manage the administration, governance and, most importantly, revenue generation and marketing of the game. They need to qualify for the Con Feds cup before they have a chance of securing any cash. Even then it'll have to be from some Russian oil company exclusively for the Con Feds cup who don't have access to the Internet. 

The other thing I find really interesting is that for all the off field changes, plans, coaching forums, pathways, strategy, compulsory courses, coach education, hot air there has been no notable increase in the number of pro players getting gigs round the world after coming through our "system".  A cynic might think that the whole thing is just a way for administrators and coaches to get more steady employment...mostly paid for by football players and parents

Although that's only fair up to a point because a) they keep tweaking the system so it's constantly a new system and b) the FTC/NTC system has been around since the early 2000s so despite the tweaks is broadly the same thing and JD's comments are correct in my opinion. 

I coached Fin Milne at an NTC in Palmerston North in 2003 (maybe earlier) and he's now a proper grown up playing national league.

I guess my point is supposedly forcing everyone to (a) get qualified and then (b) be coached by qualified coaches should improve outcomes which is to produce more and better players at an elite level.  It seems to have worked for the girls but for the boys I do not see what difference it has made from my days when, for example, Leo was by far the best player going round and he got decent coaching from guys at school and at Olympic (and also from Jim McMullen), he played mens football  when he was ready and then took off to Europe.

There are hundreds of kids going through elite level coaching now, and that all has to be paid for, but as per only the very top tier are getting into pro football which is exactly the same as it always was.  I have an in-built suspicion of academies and private training and at the end of the day that is what a lot of NZF does these days effectively.  It is partly why I was never as outraged by the pay to play fiasco from a couple of years ago as others were