All Whites, Ferns, and other international teams
Plus he is regularly at the national secondary school championship.
With Alex Rufer and Matthew Ridenton now on full time contracts at the Phoenix, is this the most professional players we've ever had in a U17 NZ team?
I also see ESPN FC is predicting a Croatian player to be the star of the tournament as he is already in the Croatia senior national team
fair enough, but plenty of NTC/FTC players don't get to secondary schools or auk u17 club champs.
Kotahitanga. We are one.
Anyway, now really looking fwd to this game tonight/early am. So hope they manage to perform well. c'mon the kids.
Kotahitanga. We are one.
1-0 down at 3 minutes. Long throw into the box. Headed to the penalty spot by Micthell and volleyed home.
Urugauy doing a good job of squeezing us when we have the ball
From the Twitter updates, seems this has been pretty painful thus far!
www.kiwifromthecouch.blogspot.com
Not really painful. They are just significantly better than us all over the park.
We have spent almost the entire half chasing shadows!!
Uruguay completely dominating all parts of the field. When we have tried to pass they have pressed us into long balls, and our CB's look really uncomfortable on the ball.
Also I don't like how far back we are sitting when defending, need to tighten up the game and stop letting the mids drop in and get easy possession and have all the time in the world to turn and pick a pass. We seem really worried about the through ball / over the top pass which they are good at, but we are getting cut through anyway.
Hard to believe they struggled to qualify!
Hard to believe they struggled to qualify!
Uruguay just produce better players. As simple as that. Technically and skillfully light-years ahead of the Nz players. This is one of the better age group teams I've watched and I can say with certainty that some of these players will be big stars in the future. What's the most interesting thing is that Uruguay has a population of over 1 million less people than New Zealand, which makes you ask the question of how they develop such amazing players.
Hopefully, the other two teams in our group are a little more at our level either way : )
No alternatives to football??
Greater history of technical football, thus more capable coaches at it.
Hopefully, the other two teams in our group are a little more at our level either way : )
yeah they must be the smallest nation in the world to win a world cup.
If only NZ could drift about 10,000 km closer to south america, I am sure we would win a world cup too ;)
If we build it, they will come...
Hopefully, the other two teams in our group are a little more at our level either way : )
We are in a very tough group. Ivory Coast won their qualifcation route. Italy were runners up.
2 more this half already and we have looked so much better this half!
Change of shapes seemed to have worked. Patterson looks less isoleated up top.
I hate comments like "wilful runner" being used to describe NZ players... sound like your searching for a compliment.
Whats our worst result at u17 level 8 - 0 against Spain?
Might be under threat.
Despite the result I still think this has been one of the better u17 teams I have seen NZ put out.
They can pass the ball reasonable well and seem to be ok technically. Just completely outgunned though today.
They've had a couple of decent attacking plays in this second half. Extra man they've emploed in attack has left them a bit exposed at the back however.
Aside from our RB I have not been impressed by our back three at all.
Well a disappointing result to the say the least given I had some fairly high expectations for this group.
Will be interesting how they approach the next game.
I think in general our defences line was very poor today nd didn't track well or dominate any aspect whether in the air of physically. Also we seemed to play a really deep defensive line which gave their strikers too many pockets to run into and turn on the ball when they received it because we did not follow and put pressure on, but simply held.
Thought our passing at times looked pretty crisp however, and some of the touches were not too bad.
Our better players were the RB and Ridenton. Patterson put himself about a bit but lacked a little nous I thought and Houlsten did ok up top by himself.
Well done Uruguay though. Great passing game and fantastic movement off the ball.
7-0! Gutted for the lads. They will be too. NZF need to look in the mirror and ask whether they could have done better by this team - preparations and the World Cup Tax debacle.
Kotahitanga. We are one.
I think one of the big positives to take out of this game is New Zealand's willingness to try and take the game to Uruguay.
Even when we were several goals down we were still trying to build attacks and did get into some threatening positions. Temptation would have been to shut-up-shot and minimise the damage. So credit to the boys for trying to play football until the end.
The big problem was that cheaply turning the ball over around the edge of the Uruguay box when we had five or more players forward gave Uruguay too much time and opportunity to counter - which they did very well.
Plenty to be learnt from that game, but I still think we are making progress as a football nation and no shame in losing to a very good team.
Uruguay to make semis.
