Big wraps from those in and around the club for Trenberth (16), Clegg (16) and Pietersen (15) who are also students at the New Zealand Performance Academy Aotearoa - Or the Wellington Phoenix charter school (alongside Bancroft and Amyes).
Those three were easily the prominent performers across the OFC Championship (Kumar, Lee Sang, and Cashmore looked decent too imho) and hey, it looks like we're about to sell a guy we brought in at 16 years old and we're about to seemingly sell him for several hundred thousand $$$ to Portsmouth over in England, so why not try and find the next one?
Worth noting here too that Cruz Pietersen was also the winner of the Auckland x AFC Bournemouth experience after last December's Western Springs U17 tournament. But because he was too young to satisfy FIFA rules he wasn't able to attend - He was 14 at the time! They are monitoring his progress to see if they can get him over the future though. Some good people have kept him in Wellington too, because he is an Auckland lad and wanted to move back North... Hopefully this is the catalyst for him to make a name for himself with the Nix at the very least.
Get the scholarship deals lined up for all these kids, get them playing regularly for the ressies and in and around the first team and watch them go to the next level.
Those three were easily the prominent performers across the OFC Championship (Kumar, Lee Sang, and Cashmore looked decent too imho) and hey, it looks like we're about to sell a guy we brought in at 16 years old and we're about to seemingly sell him for several hundred thousand $$$ to Portsmouth over in England, so why not try and find the next one?
Worth noting here too that Cruz Pietersen was also the winner of the Auckland x AFC Bournemouth experience after last December's Western Springs U17 tournament. But because he was too young to satisfy FIFA rules he wasn't able to attend - He was 14 at the time! They are monitoring his progress to see if they can get him over the future though. Some good people have kept him in Wellington too, because he is an Auckland lad and wanted to move back North... Hopefully this is the catalyst for him to make a name for himself with the Nix at the very least.
Get the scholarship deals lined up for all these kids, get them playing regularly for the ressies and in and around the first team and watch them go to the next level.