Red cards issue to NZ and to Fiji. Fijian player with hand to the throat of NZ captain Lienard, not sure what the NZ player (blonde mop in midfield) who got sent did, other than need to be dragged away from the fracas by teammates but might have been out of shot, the Fijians were certainly incensed by him.
Brook-Smith heads home from close range after the keeper gets a weak hand to a corner. 2-1 NZ.
We've also subbed the very impressive Lienard from CB which surprises me.
Now Cardozo pokes home from close range to make it 3-1 with 20 or so to go.
Not our best day but otherwise an outstanding tournament, and it was nice to see Fiji be more competitive in the final (even if the goal and red cards situation weren't good for us)
In the big 3rd/4th playoff game hosts Tahiti lost on pens to New Caledonia. The match finished 1-1 after 90 minutes and New Caledonia prevailed 5-4 on penalties.
The draw for the OFC U-16 Men’s Championship 2025 and OFC U-16 Men’s Championship 2025 – Qualifying have been confirmed today at the OFC Home of Football – Te Kahu o Kiwa.
Qualifying takes place in Tonga, in May, with four nations – American Samoa, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Tonga – meeting in a single qualifying group to determine who will advance to the championship in the Solomon Islands in August.
Whoever does advance from qualifying will join Group A in Honiara, alongside Fiji, Tahiti and the Cook Islands.
Group A will feature defending champions New Zealand, Samoa, New Caledonia and hosts Solomon Islands.
As well as the trophy, there are also three qualifying places available for the FIFA U-17 World Cup™ 2026, with the winner, runner-up and third placed team all securing their spot in Qatar.
I'll stick this here. Do they publicly announce the NZ U15 team, or does that go against the commendable ethos of keeping it all low pressure development type stuff?
https://www.oceaniafootball.com/u-15-development-tournament-kicks-off-today/ The best up and coming footballers from Cook Islands, Fiji, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Samoa, Tahiti, Tonga and Vanuatu have arrived in Auckland, New Zealand, for the 2025 OFC U-15 Boys Development Tournament, which kicks off today and runs until 23 April.
Special to welcome FIFA and participants from across Oceania with a pōwhiri to start the Talent Development Scheme workshop in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland this week. pic.twitter.com/ygveiBIvt1
So a international tournament even oif its for fun and no pressure let's all hold hands, played in nz and we don't even enter a team...
It wasn't a formal tournament with anything on the line for us, why would we enter? It would be a downgrade in quality of opponent for our equivalent players at U15 level.
New Caledonia-born FIFA World Cup winner Christian Karembeu has praised the OFC U-15 Boys Development tournament held in Auckland New Zealand over the past week, describing it as a “privilege” and an “essential pathway” for young footballers across Oceania.
Karembeu who works at Greek club Olympiakos has voiced strong support for the newly announced OFC Pro League, set to start in early 2026.
“For me, it’s a revolution. It’s going to change football in the Pacific. But federations need to be ready. A professional league brings responsibility, structure and higher standards. It’s not just about passion anymore—it becomes a job, a daily commitment.”
The New Zealand Men’s U-16 team has been confirmed to take part in the new pilot FIFA Youth Series tournament set to be played at FIFA’s Home of Football in Zurich, Switzerland, this May.
The tournament features six teams, from all six of the FIFA confederations, split into two groups:
Group A – Guatemala, Aotearoa New Zealand, and Switzerland
Group B – Malaysia, Paraguay, and Tunisia
Each team will play the other two countries in their group before facing off against the side in their equivalent position in the other pool (3rd vs 3rd, 2nd vs 2nd, and a final of 1st vs 1st to confirm the overall winner).
Aotearoa New Zealand will play Switzerland on 19 May, and Guatemala on 20 May, with both games kicking off at 2:30am NZT (18 and 19 May at 4:30pm local time).
The 5th place playoff and 3rd place playoff will be played on 22 May at 2:30am NZT and 9pm NZT respectively, with the Final on 23 May 2:30am NZT.
The tournament will be broadcast live and free on FIFA+.
If they can ensure a tournament like this happens once every year against opponents outside the OFC, then thats a good calendar of matches for the next several years, given the yearly nature of U17 World Cups now.
Good level of competition too. Of the six teams involved in this series, only Guatemala and Malaysia didn't qualify for the 2025 U17 World Cup.
Not many Aucklanders. Just the three. Of course some of the Nix picks may originally be from the 09.
But it's something Niche Cache also commented on recently with the Auckland FC reserves squad, and the fact not many had been in NZ age group teams. Just of late for it's dominant popn not many Auckland kids making national age group squads.
Western United (western Melbourne) has almost as many in this U16 squad with two.
The emergence of Auckland FC with all it's resources and MOUs signed with the various Northern Region clubs should turn things around somewhat.
And someone at the maligned NZF is doing a good job tracking young Kiwi heritage players abroad. In this squad you have kids in Aussie (4), UK (3) & USA (1).
Be interesting to see if the Nix look to sign the 3 South Island kids plus one in Palmy and other at Miramar. Before Auckland came to be they had the best NZU17 talent to themselves.
First match v Switzerland is on tomorrow morning - 2.20am kickoff.
Not staying up for it as I'm up for work at 5 (even I'm not that crazy) but should be able to crack into the replay at work by about 6.30. Go well lads. Should be a good test to see where we're at heading into the U17 World Cup later this year too.
2nd game v Guatemala on the following day, same time.
New Zealand 3 - 2 Switzerland Well I'll be damned, get in!
There's not very many records to chase up on, and scant detail at this age grade, but I'm pretty sure that's our first win over European opposition at this level since we beat Poland 2-1 at the 1999 World Cup in Auckland.
Interesting watch. Certainly trying to play a little more, but pretty scrappy.
Artificial pitches though.
In both games we have been destroyed on the right flank defensively. So much space... hard to tell if it's a structural thing due to limited camera angles.
Defo work on.
3 ofnour 5 goals have come from corners, 1 from pinching it off the keepers toes, so still work to do in general attacking play.
LBS will be an asset to the team when he joins. 2 world cups for him this year potentially.
Baldoni is at Ellerslie and Trenberth at the Phoenix.
Another win for our Men’s U16 team this morning against Guatemala in the FIFA Youth Series 🇳🇿🇬🇹
Goals from Benjamin Perez Baldoni and Ben Trenberth secured a first place finish in the group and progression to the FIFA Youth Series Final, taking place on May 23 2:30am NZT 🏆 pic.twitter.com/ZtRD95fukE
— New Zealand Football 🇳🇿 (@NZ_Football) May 19, 2025
Paraguay far too good in the final - 3-0 it finishes.
The South Americans were quicker, hungrier, and just wanted it more, as well as being clinical with the chances they had. Their 3rd goal coming well into added time at the end which inflated things a little as we looked to push forward and try and get something out of the game.
All said and done though, a good tournament for our lads and lots of positives to bring back home ahead of the World Cup later in the year. Switzerland and Paraguay have also qualified for the tournament, so this was a useful marker to see where we're at in regards to some of the competition at least.
Some useful prospects to keep an eye on for mine - Ethan Dyer & Matias Nunez. From the shouting you could hear on the sidelines it sounded like we were trying to get Nunez on the ball as often as we could - Looks a lively technical player who can spark things, and was involved in some nice passing moves as we looked to build up. But the Paraguayan's kept him largely in check.
Dyer looks to have a nice solid frame at the back for a young lad too which bodes well for a future as a centreback - Was happy to play it out, and comfortable with ball at feet, not just looking to go long and give it a hoof up field. A decent passing range on the kid. He also had some nice touches and turns to beat the aggressive press that Paraguay employed as well. Defensively sound and good in the air.
— New Zealand Football 🇳🇿 (@NZ_Football) May 25, 2025
Strong group. Mali runners up in African qualification, Saudi Arabia the same in Asia, Austria won their group phase and came 2nd (behind Germany) in the advanced group stage, so didn't progress to the finals, but qualified for the World Cup anyway.
Our OFC neighbours with even stronger groups you feel - New Caledonia landing Japan, Morocco & Portugal. With Fiji grouped with Argentina, Belgium & Tunisia. Two OFC qualifiers was generous, you feel three qualifiers is just merely taking the piss just a wee bit...
OFC U16 qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup get underway in August. Hopefully we get another tournament or a few fixtures in before the 2025 edition in November. 🤞
U17's could almost be a full time programme with these yearly world cups + friendlies/tournaments. Really good to see.
Is a 48 team WC now, but yes nuts OFC get 3 teams. Helps Infantino lock in the OFC bloc come FIFA president re election time?
You'd think NZF would try organise some games verus Australia U17s. Aussies were a bit unlucky at the Asian U17s WC. Finished 3rd in the their 4 team pool (4 pts). So didn't progress to the quarters. Same pts as pool opponents Japan & UAE, and same GD as UAE, but lost the head to head battle.
Hosts Saudi were a little fortunate to finish 2nd. Beat both Japan (QF 2-2) & Sth Korea (semi 1-1) on pens to make the final verus Uzbekistan.
From memory the 2023 U17s toured Japan pre their WC, so maybe again a little tour of Nippon could be organised. South Korea have also qualified.
And yes Austria edged Spain to finish 2nd in their UEFA U17 tourney pool, so they must be pretty decent. Still the NZ boys will take some confidence from their win over Switzerland last week.
Lets hope it's better a U17 WC than that fairly dire one in Indonesia back in 2023.
8 players from the Nix. Quite a contrast to the National girls U16 team that had only 1 Nix player. Boys on average moving to the Weenix Academy at a younger age than boys?
And none from Ole/Wests? Not that long ago they had big numbers in national age group sides.
Zero from the Sth Island, though there maybe some Mainland origin kids with the Nix.
Perez Baldoni sounds like one to watch. Remembering these U16s did well recently at that little tourney in Switzerland. The coach remains Martin Bullock, who will be busy preparing for annual U17 WCs (Nov this year) and U16 OFC tourneys.
🇳🇿 SQUAD ANNOUNCED 🚨
Confirming our team to compete in the OFC U-16 Men’s Championship 2025, the qualifying tournament for the FIFA U-17 World Cup 2026, taking place in Solomon Islands next month 🏆
Less than a week after success at the Emerging Socceroos Championships, Ethan Dyer (NSW U16) and Keigo Shimokawa (VIC U15) have been called up by New Zealand. All players at ESC had to be eligible for Australia in order to play so it's a tug of war started nice and early. https://t.co/Iy1LVrjRJS
Less than a week after success at the Emerging Socceroos Championships, Ethan Dyer (NSW U16) and Keigo Shimokawa (VIC U15) have been called up by New Zealand. All players at ESC had to be eligible for Australia in order to play so it's a tug of war started nice and early. https://t.co/Iy1LVrjRJS
Ethan Dyer has more than handful of caps (by my count - 8) for the NZ U17's and he's one I'd be keeping an eye on.
At least his selection in this squad ties him to us for this cycle. Could well be a tussle with Australia for him down the line at U19/U20 level of he continues to progress. That, and it sounds like he's right under their noses as it is at this level as it is.
But especially the hosts Solomons (final pool game) and even New Caledonia (2nd pool game) could be tricky in oven like conditions, and likely not the truish surface. All day games in the heat of the sun.
Who knows. As others post age group stuff is so hard to assess pre tourney.
