New Zealand Men's U-17s

There is little communication between clubs at the Youth Level in the Waikato. They're competing for players, and with four clubs now playing in the Auckland Comp from u14 up, this has only grown stronger. 

Melville and Cambridge are definately the strongest currently. Wanderers and Northern United a step down.

Lots of the younger players will trial across teams at all clubs and then go from there depending what is on offer. Cambridge offers a variety of overseas tournaments and the CHCH Cup, and Northern does the Vegas Comp etc which is bringing players in. Melville and to my knowledge don't offer the above, which potentially will cost them long term as the above is a point of difference.

Whats the cost of these programmes and offerings across the regions? I feel there is definitely kids getting priced out of these academy's etc therefore not getting developed and missed altogether. CIC tournaments and the like, aren't about the best players playing. It about who can afford to play...

Got a bit of a Latino look to that AFC U17s squad.
Will be an interesting couple of games.

Nix currently dominating NZ U16s/17s selection.

https://twitter.com/fc_auckland/status/2097086353301459259

https://twitter.com/fc_auckland/status/2097086353301459259

When and where are these games?

NZCIS tonight (now) and Sunday 11am.

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Assuming we lost as Nix academy page  didn't post a score. Our women also had heavy defeats.  Pretty disappointing.  

Don't see any score on the AFC Development page either, so could have been a boring 0-0?

Result
Wellington Phoenix U17's 1 - 0 Auckland FC U17's

I've seen enough, get them all first team contracts! 🤣

I have no details on the goalscorer apart from that it was a backpost header to settle it.

F/T and it finishes 2-1 to Wellington, who came back from 1-0 down at H/T thanks to a long range strike from outside the box and a late free kick.

Open game and plenty of chances for both sides - some gilt edged ones at that. Good hit out for both.

Phoenix U17's the only Wellington side with a winning record against Auckland - 3 wins, 1 draw and 0 losses now.

And hence currently they dominate NZU16s/17s selection.

Interestingly they've added vertical zones to the pitch, most likely for training positional play.

And hearing a lot of Spanish?

I watched the game on mute due to the wind getting up and distorting the sound coming out of the tv sound bar. Prior to that I thought there was a lot of chat out of the Auckland bench after they went up 1-0 early. 

Can only imagine that chatter had dried up by the end? 

Fwiw - Auckland were the better of the two in 1st half (also with a goal ruled out for offside) and Wellington were the better in the 2nd. Unsure if wind played a factor overall as I don't think it was blowing that bad either. Well, by Wellington standards anyway. 🤷‍♂️