New Zealand Men's U-20s

one thing has been how much we've given it away in less than 50:50s. Knobbled so many of our a tacks and put so much defensive pressure back on us. Wow USA are going to fancy themselves after this - but they're just not that good. A mix of wnder goals and softies as we've been chasing. 

Guess that's what happens when we don't play our best team.....but we're getting better - with some hard lessons at times.

Beazley looked like such a smug git there on camera

Thank Flcuk for the final whistle. That was so poor its hard to find a positive.

The starting line up lacked faith in the players, the set up was negative and the execution was poor. We had moments, but in the end we lacked quality, heart and coaching.

that's sux

The great news is Beasley will surely never be seen coaching a NZ national team again.

I can just see the headlines tomorrow morning: 
'Bazeley signs as new manager of the Phoenix after VISA issues with Unnamed European Manager' 

I guess the only positive is that  some of the players got a chance to shine. In the right setups a few of them could prosper if given the chance. Poor Bevan  tho - he got f- all to do anything with. I like Singh.

Nice to finish the night with a laugh - cheers!

Not near as bad as scoreline indicates and doesn't tell the whole picture for either side in terms of where they are at for this age group. The WC at youth level rarely does.

Both NZ and the US had a number of players not here because they are with senior team (NZ especially hurt by this though US also has Pulisic with senior team for June WCQs) or weren't released by club or for any other number of reasons.

Future looks solid for both countries. Was extremely impressed by NZ at this tournament, and US a showing to be proud of so far as well.

Was reasonable until the last twenty collapse. Reasonable, but we were never going to win. Bad selections, really bad. Billingsley back in was a woeful pick - the coaching staff would clearly rather pick brawn over guile. Under orders from above? Probably. Taking off Ashworth, our one big threat in the air at set pieces, which were our most likely route back into it.

Woud had a bad day, but it's easy to point the finger at the keeper when you've let in six. Still, he should have comfortably saved two of them. 

And Moses Dyer. What more is there to say? Hope the next team he leads is a shift crew at McDonalds. He shouldn't be anywhere near international football of any level.

Positives. Woud for most of the tournament, Singh, McGarry, Ashworth (except for a few minutes vs Honduras), Bell in patches and of course, Myer Bevan. Looks like a proper footballer.

Was disappointed at the start with the line-up and set up picked, and the first half hour confirmed it - it never looked like we were trying to win it, just set up to hold on and hope.  We reverted to almost the Vietnam style play.  It was sad to see.  Singh really does change the dynamic of the team.

On the whole though, I think the tournament was pretty successful for us.  We looked good against Honduras, and despite being over matched and outplayed by France, I thought we stayed positive and looked to play rather than just sit in and knock it long.

We were poor USA were a class above us,apart from France we got out of a poor group. As for Bazeley he will keep  his job he is in Hudsons pocket Hudson has no friends so needs this mans support so his job is safe.The man can not coach end of story and his selections are woeful but as has been said on here by others Thats the last we've seen of Dyer at any level again so something positive to come out of it. 

I doubt you'd get many odds to support that at the TAB.

The Nix players showed the benefit of being in a pro environment - they were miles better than the rest of the squad. Concern though about the central defence. An area we are traditionally strong and can't see any of this team ever playing a level better than SSP.

Best outcome of this entire tournament is the Phoenix signing Singh.

I think we did ok, despite the coaching and tactics - certainly we met the expectations I had without going above. I don't put too much on the final score of that USA game, it was a better contest than the score suggests.

Ashworth, Singh, Bevan, McGarry, Bell and Woud can hold their heads high. Others were hit and miss - I actually thought Dyer was quite good last night, was very influential but should definitely have scored at 1-0. We showed some fantastic talent and the future is bright with these lads coming through.

On the other hand, Bazely is a fudgeing muppet. How can he look at Singh, Bevan and Rogerson making France look very ordinary at times and decide to go back to hoofball? There's some fantastic footballers in the squad and I'm really looking forward to seeing what Singh especially does for the Nix this year. I can see why he picks Billingsley - Noah is a donkey but at least he does the donkey work.

Only the 2nd time we've ever made the knockout stages of an U20 WC - something to keep building on.

Yep, it's made me even more excited to (hopefully) start getting some meaningful game time next season.

Too much hoofball again.

Hudson will select  Dyer again and he will continue to play poorly. However, there will be a game eventually  where he does something good and Hudson will trumpet him  as the messiah and question all the nay sayers.

Pro Environment? Give me a break. Nothing Professional about the Phoenix apart from their title as a professional club. Shambles from top to bottom.

Big Kev? Eddie Edge? Joe Bloggz?

Nice negative first post there (You'll fit right in).

Also, having a name of Stats Don't Lie is kind of ironic when you consider how well the Phoenix players performed...

Without The Phoenix it would have been highly unlikely that we would have qualified for the 2010 World Cup.

Without the Phoenix we would have our own 10 team fully professional televised national league.  All the media coverage is on the Phoenix and takes attention away from our own product.  (Am I doing it right?)

Maybe we would have a 20 team fully professional league with relegation to another professional league too. I love dreaming.

Thanks for playing.

Anyone know of any players having trials?

Kosta is that you?

I just love all of the keyboard warriors who are happy to pick apart our National Teams when they have no idea what they are talking about. Then try to talk up the Phoenix who are a 'professional club' operating at an amateur level. Reality is, U20s made history as the first U20 side to get out of their group in the top 2.... what else are you expecting from an under-resourced program in a country of 4 million people? Maybe Ernie or Ricky should have taken them and we would have won...... the wooden spoon. Delusional.

I can see only one keyboard warrior here...

A lot of us try and back up any information with sourced facts and don't hide behind anonymous monikers.  Some make blanket statements without any facts to support them, hide their identity, and then call people names like "Keyboard Warriors"

next!

The 2018 U-19 OFC Championship has been drawn, sees us in Group A with Tahiti, Papua New Guinea and a team from qualifiers.

https://www.oceaniafootball.com/cms/wp-content/upl...

Thank God that FIFA used common sense and decided to stick with the current format for its youth competitions after a vote at its recent FIFA Council meeting in Colombia.

There was a proposal from FIFA to replace the bi-annual u-17 and u-20 World Cups with a single annual u-19 tournament.

Imagine the horrific expense of holding qualifying tournaments every year and sendng a team to the finals every year, especially for the impoverished Pacific Island countries.

Key points decided by the FIFA council meeting March 16:

http://www.fifa.com/about-fifa/news/y=2018/m=3/new...

• Poland designated as host of FIFA U-20 World Cup and Peru of FIFA U-17 World Cup in 2019
• FIFA’s annual reports endorsed, with positive result of USD 100 million expected for the 2015-2018 cycle
•   Strategic body approves the use of VARs at the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia™
• • Voting procedure for the designation of the host(s) of the 2026 FIFA World Cup™ also approved

  • After discussing the pros and cons of adopting a different strategy for the future of international youth competitions, the FIFA Council decided to stick to the existing structure of biennial U-17 and U-20 tournaments for both men and women.

Wouldn’t one team on an annual cycle, be the same cost as two teams on a biennial cycle?

I understand under 20 players have been invited to a talent identification camp in wellington in April, with out of Wellington players paying their own travel and food. Would have thought national camps should not be user pays? Hope we don't miss some  talent as a result.

I agree NZF should not be user pays... but the reality is NZF just does not have the funds. Once the WC is expanded and we are likely to be at every WC, I hope this practice falls away to the side.