Fifa Youth Cup - WYNRS, 8th/9th May

Probably get blasted for putting this in NZ international section but couldn't find a better option or any other posts on the topic.

So how the heck did we get a NZ team into this tournament? thumbs up for Wynton and his mates?

Surely a good opportunity for these kids or does this tournament not really lead to anything as far as scouting etc goes?

by the way the team photo of the WYNRS guys looks how can i say...not as convincing as some of the other teams.

The Mighty WYNRS...

VS

these little kids.

Plenty of private academy tours around. This is a quality tournament; likewise Milk Cup in Northern Ireland, which has seen an Otago team for the last 10 years. 

Is it true though that Boyd and Fenton are going to this (I'm sure I read this somehwere but I'm a bit confused now)

The photo is hilarious.... the kid in front of Wynrs looks 12 and the other kid on the far right is simply massive.

I think the second image must be from Africa or somewhere else with dodgy passports. One kid has more facial hair than me and a tattoo already, and the others similarly all look 18 plus.

Wow who picked out the 11th grade kit from the 1990s! 

Yeah I heard Louis Fenton was going to this in the article about them going?

Can't be the side as tournament only for 1993's and older, who knows what this photo is. However Reece Lambert and Cameron Martin were both went to the last u17 world cup team.

http://www.fifa.com/youthcup/news/newsid=2053249/

Informative article on the WYNRS team and the Swiss tournament:

http://www.oceaniafootball.com/ofc/News/ViewArticle/tabid/125/Article/ff380b4c-9ca0-4ba9-8b4d-d79bb4aa9537/language/en-US/Default.aspx

... Rufer has assembled a side consisting largely of New Zealanders including Wellington Phoenix duo Louis Fenton and Tyler Boyd, James Debenham, Reece Lambert, Liam Anderson and Alex Rufer, who is currently with the New Zealand U-17 squad at the OFC U-17 Championship in Vanuatu.

Also adding some Pacific Island flavour to the mix is Papua New Guinea’s Alwin Komolong who recently led his side at the OFC U-20 Championship in Fiji.

The annual two-day tournament will be held on 8-9 May and includes youth sides from some of Europe’s great clubs including Manchester United, FC Basel, Borussia Dortmund, Torino FC, Zenit St. Petersburg, FX Zurich, Grasshopper Club and of course hosts FC Blue Stars. Also attending this year’s tournament is Brazilian club side Botafogo.

... Roughly half the squad have been able to take part in a few training sessions during their build-up to the tournament and Rufer concedes that it isn’t an ideal situation.

“Obviously it’s going to be difficult compared with the other teams who are more regularly playing with each other. They play competitions together, it’s not easy. But I’ve got my brother Shane with me, who is like the main coach for the team, and fortunately he’s got a few clues about football having been a former pro himself, so hopefully we won’t embarrass ourselves,” he says.

With two groups of five teams, each side will have three games on the first day followed by the final group match on the morning of the second day. The final table positions will be decided after the top side in each group play of, the second placed play second and so on. The halves are 20 minutes each way.

“The players who will attend are born in 1993 or younger and the majority of clubs will have all 1993-born players. We’ve only got a few so it isn’t going to be easy, but it will be an amazing experience."...

Blue Stars/FIFA Youth Cup day 1

Results:
WYNRS - Botafogo FR (Brazil) 1:1 (goal scorer: Louis Fenton)
Borussia Dortmund (Germany) - WYNRS 0:0

They are fantastic results!!

Young team, little time together. Great stuff.

Even better now that I see those two teams are top of the group after 3 games (we've played 2).

If we can pinch a win we and a draw we should go through to the semis, even asingle win might do.

Tried to find more about the games... found the official site (i think and had the games summary translated) see link below.

By all accounts we were the equal of both teams.

http://translate.google.ae/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.youthcup.ch/&prev=/search%3Fq%3DFIFA%2BBlue%2BStars%2Btournament%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-us:IE-Address%26rlz%3D1I7RNTN_en

also there are no semi's all the teams go through for a position play off match top of each group versus each other, second versus each other and so on.

Yuck

.

jesus wept.

What does it say on the shirts?

don't they look scary....

Why is Wynton pretending to be a cat?

Love the bouncy castle in the background.

I like how the non-white looking one is at the front.

So embarrassing. The quicker Rufer gets out of football, the better.

I too agree.

What does Fussball-corner oechslin mean in English?

Is that the Zurich branch of Champs?

 Probably Wynton farted.

Not sure how being apart of the tournament is a bad thing?

I see after the good results of draws with Botafogo from Brazil and Borussia Dortmund, the WYNRS side lost 2-0 to both FC Basel and Grasshoppers Zurich (one of Wynton's old clubs) - the local Swiss sides seemed to benefit a lot from home advantage with FC Zurich winning the tournament final 5-0 against Botafogo.

Those results were no disgrace, as Basel went on to beat Manchester United, and Grasshoppers, FC Torino in the next round.

WYNRS won their classification match in the next round 4-2 on penalties after a 1-1 draw against tournament hosts FC Blue Stars (a local Zurich club) to finish 9th out of the 10 teams.

Video summary of the tournie with Wynton interview, glimpse of WYNRS playing, Nicky Butt and Blatter: http://www.fifa.com/youthcup/news/newsid=2080369/index.html

Tournament home page: http://translate.google.ae/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.youthcup.ch/&prev=/search%3Fq%3DFIFA%2BBlue%2BStars%2Btournament%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-us:IE-Address%26rlz%3D1I7RNTN_en

Tournament FIFA homepage (it's an official FIFA tournie):  http://www.fifa.com/youthcup/news/index.html

TABLES:

Group A:                                                                                                       Group B

Team                            Points       Goals                                       Team                               Points         Goals

1 FC Zurich4                    10           8: 0                                          1 Botafogo FR                10                 7: 3                     

2 Manchester United        10           4:1                                           2 FC Basel                       6                 6: 6

3 Zenit St. Petersburg         6           4: 5                                         3 Borussia Dortmund       5                 5: 5  

4 Torino                               3           1:6                                          4 Grasshopper Club         4                 4: 4  

5 Blue Stars                         1          1:6                                           5 WYNRS NZ                   2                 1: 5

 FINAL RANKING:

1 FC Zurich

2 Botafogo FR

3 FC Basel 

4 Manchester United 

5 Zenit St. Petersburg

6 Borussia Dortmund

7 Grasshopper Club

 I can just hear Wynton now..."Ka mate! Ka mate! Ka oar! I'm a tiger, hear me roar"

on a positive note though, his legs are looking great!