New Zealand Men's U-20s

Croncombe had a shocker - just as well he is already tied to a professional contract. Basalaj to come in for the remaining two games.

I thought Watson looked ok up top and he won a few free kicks and made so ok passes but was isolated. We don't have the players to play one up front effectively especially with our two wingers / support attacking players always falling back to defend.

I would like to see him play up top with a striker running off him. Thought Tuiloma looked good and Howieson was ok with Payne, but they both looked sideways a lot because there was nothing going forward and our attack lacked anything as a result. Howieson doesn't track defensively very well (not his main role, but still could do better).

We need to play two up front and make teams work harder on defense.

I though Fenton was very average and had his head down all the time.

Not sure who else we would bring in, but a change to a 4 - 4 - 2 I think is needed or similar.

Yeah Louis Fenton appeared to have his head down a fair bit in the NZA/Jordan game as well.Hope we can improve in the next

Only saw the Fifa highlights but ugh, what poor keeping. Next keeper please

Tuiloma is a left footer but as I suspected, he is gone.

Gone where?

Galaxy or has that fallen through or ... Ok now I am confused.

It's fallen through, he was back in NZ before going off to Turkey with the U20s.

(Highlights) Game playing on TV 1 now.

1st goal is a shocker.

Don't worry about Bill....plenty of interest from Europe and England as well as other MLS.

good, he deserves it

can't believe how bad we were. the players are ok by me, in terms of new zealand age group sides, but the team looked shocking. 

i don't have an opinion on milicich, but if i were to form one based on this game i would say that he's out of his depth. what do you guys think?

get out a tape measure and measure the distance between our centre backs and watson. several kilometers i'd say. 

and everyone seemed to want to stand in their position. "i'm left centre midfield" "hello, i'm right centre midfield"  the game isn't played like this, it never has been. you have to move.  

we got better as the game went on and the players seemed to take some ownership, esp howieson, who worked hard and was capable with the ball.

strange to see watson taken off when he was our only outlet

Feel marginally better now I see the Aussies lost 2-1 to El Salvador - apparently El Salvador's first win at a FIFA tournament (a more mediocre record than ours).

Having seen two-thirds of the live Uzbekistan game and a full replay, there were some signs of real ability from a couple of NZ players - namely Payne and Tuiloma and on another day Watson might have got something - he works really hard and isn't afraid of engaging physically, though has work to do on his touch and positioning.

Although Fenton didn't do much in this game, we all know the ability is there, Boyd too (good in the Jordan game)...

Thought Arms and Adams were poor in central defence and allowed the Uzbeks too much freedom -stamped no authority whatsoever.

Crocombe had a poor game - but I feel some of the blame should rest on the two fullbacks who constantly passed the ball straight back to Crocombe from out wide after he'd distributed it to them, as if they were afraid to keep the ball or take it forward. This was always very risky with so many Uzbeks crowding the central areas - they then simply pushed up and cut off any route for Crocombe to distribute the ball either out wide or up the middle , resulting in him kicking to Uzbek players.

Roux at right fullback didn't impress - looked out of his depth and timed nothing well in tackling or distribution. You kind of wonder if he'll make it at A-League level.

Sounds like Uruguay were pretty average by their standards in losing to Croatia 1-0. Lets hope they don't move beyond average against us - though we could well suffer the back-lash...

Prediction for tomorrow morning??? 

Pumped. 0-5

1-1 draw - uruguay with an early red card

William Hill odds (Betshoot) 

13 - 1    NZ win

   7 - 1    draw

1.18 - 1  Uruguay win

Sorry to say but after the last performance I might just watch the replay tomorrow instead of staying up. 

Nah - have faith.They will have been gutted by that last effort.This game will be them giving it the works.I'm going to watch it live, just in case they pull a rabbit out of the hat.(Even pulling a hair out their arse would be an improvement.)

First half was all Croatia, in control of the game, scored the goal, and also missed a penalty. Second half Croatia sat back on the lead, and Uruguay really grew into the game, and will probably be quite disappointed not to have got an equaliser. Their left wing (can't remember his name now) was very, very good, he could cause all sorts of problems for whoever is on that right flank.

Any word on starting line-up? Surely there will be changes? Gotta say, after Monday's game I'm debating whether it's worth getting up for...

Starting line-ups: http://www.fifa.com/u20worldcup/matchcast/matchday=6/day=1/match=300232847/index.html?intcmp=livecoverage_box_u20worldcup_en

Basalaj / Roux / Arms / Adams / Gulley / Howieson /  Payne / Boyd / Fenton / Higgins / Thomas

A few changes there with left fullback Tuiloma out injured and replaced by Gulley, Crocombe relegated to the bench, Watson replaced by Higgins.

Uruguay seem to be fielding the same starting eleven as vs. Croatia...

      FIFA Twitter:   

       FIFA.com ?@FIFAcom53m

1. The Uruguay (@AUFOficial) players enter the Ataturk Stadium in Bursa ahead of their #u20wc game with New Zealand - pic.twitter.com/hbfLyVHXzf

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2. FIFA.com ?@FIFAcom      51m

   The New Zealand (@NZ_Football) coach arrives ahead of their #u20WC Group F match with Uruguay in Bursa - pic.twitter.com/XMvQb3ApZV

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Good luck lads
#fingerscrossed

Dissappointing... I hope including U20 team into ASB Prem will do help and that we'll see better performance at 2015 WC.

The Croatia match may be painful.Roux had a better game

Yes mate your absolutely right [Jordan Vale]- and surely couldnt be worse, but the point is why he and Reece Jordan not played so far? they have been on world stage before so no stage fright from these guys. Thats 17 goals against in last 5 games..............

Oh well cant blame the Auckland players, theres only one there [on the field]

Well that was a whole lot better!!!

The kiwi boys did OK. They held their shape throughout the match, worked their sox off and made the far superior Uraguay team work for their win. Considering the Uraguay team has one guy who has just signed a 5 year deal with Man U, another guy who has played games for Roma and another who scored 13 goals for River Plate lasty seaon then our lads did all right.

Apart from a brilliant unstoppable free kick in the third minute we held them out until the 85th. Uraguay were superior all over the park....25 shots to 3 but this was a much much better team performance. They looked much better drilled and worked as a unit.

I watched the game on Europort and they had two English commentator...one was an ex player whose name I didn't catch. Their NZ man of the match was Roux. they commented how well he defended, his good positional play and his speed getting up and down. They noticed that Uraguay got no joy down his flank and didn't get a cross in from there until late in the game. 

I thought the two Nix lads Fenton and Boyd also did OK. Boyd was the lone ranger up front but he absolutely chased everything for the full 90, worked his arse off...also had some nice touches and a couple of shots. Very isolated though. Fenton worked well in confined spaces. Howieson has a very classy left boot and seems to have lots of time on the ball. Basalaj was 1000% better...was not at fault for either goal.

So individually we were way off their level but as a team we performed better.....progress has been made i guess!!!!! 

Ah wasnt too bad but little guttered that we keep seeing Boyd being so isolated up top - never gonna get off the mark if he has to chase all day

Seemed a lot better defensively this morning, although I suspect Uruguay were playing within themselves. Think having Gulley in there helped screen the back four than the first game.  Across both games we’ve looked really vulnerable in the air, and not seem to win many contested headers. Fairly disappointing second goal to cough up. Poor clearance from the back by Arms.

As expected, created very little going forward. Having said that Boyd did well with the ball he did get, and as mentioned, was isolated often.

Fenton work his arse off and did a  lot of good things defensively. Looked one of our better players at retaining position.

Fullback got down the touchlines well. Higgins in particular got some decent balls across.

I thought they did ok today... You got remember the quality there playing against ..the prep of other  teams.. Players who are full time pro's at top clubs..... Just dunno what people expect from these lad's ...

Lets hope one or two lads get a contract somewhere ...

so was it 2-0?

So all anyone is talking about is work rate defensive shape working their socks off... What about being able to keep the ball, pass to each other support the ball etc.

Totally old school, English style comments and football, very poor! Basalaj just launching the ball downfield all the time, often straight to the Uruguay keeper is pointless, similarly the back four, same thing just launching the ball, turning it into a game of attack vs defence - there you go Uruguay have the ball and see if you can score, if you don't we will just give it you back to try again.

We have players with ability, Thomas, Boyd, Fenton, Gulley, Howieson, admittedly not 'signed 5 yr deal for Man Utd' but decent players, yet it seems they have not been given the confidence or tactical nouse to actually play football. Surely NZF can see that coaches who have never coached outside of NZ are limited in their tactical awareness and understanding of the modern game. If we are riots about these age group sides we need someone who has been overseas, Asia, Europe or at least worked/studied under top coaches with experience of top level football. Look at Australia, with Han Berger as Technical Director, a legend of the Dutch game, yet who do NZF have leading the game...?

^

Um theres not money to pay someone like that that's why

where did all the world cup money go?  I am not advocating the assignment of someone because they are dutch, but can we really use the "we don't have money" excuse after making something like $10m from the WC?

The money from the WC is close to gone already. $4m went into the Football Foundation to support grassroots type initiatives, and big chunk of the rest went into the International Teams Reserve. That reserve has been slowly running down ever since - NZF basically use it to offset the cost of the various teams being flown around the world.

but is there no other income coming in to pay for some of this?  What would happen if Paston had not saved that penalty and we didn't get to the world cup?  Would we have age grade representative teams doing sausage sizzles outside Bunnings to get to world cups?