New Zealand Men's U-20s

Was over 15 thousand, can't remember the exact figure

What would some parks recky know.

Thats means over 55,000 have now seen the team play over three games...great news, with probably another game to come.

If we do go through to play either Portugal or Ghana anyone know where that game will be played.

Just watched the replay. The U20,s scored some excellent goals....the first two were great team goals. The header was as good as you would see from a corner.

15,527

We played ugly for much of the match. There were times however when the players showed they could play passing football. Wish we would head down that path more, even if it hurts us as we learn to play that way.

Still mission accomplished is the reality so NZF will be happy.

If Ghana would be in Wellington (Wed 10 June..4.00pm ko)

Mind you.. I havent worked out how its decided where the 4 x 3rd place teams are playing yet, lol.

Havent re-watched it yet but initial thoughts..

Yes.. Great result... but..

In terms of game awareness, decision making, the basics etc I just expected more from some of the NZ players.

Just initial thoughts on just a couple..

Lewis & Dyer - poor. Either didn't get involved/do enough or what they did when involved was poor

Patterson - reminds me of still thinking like the "best player" in his 6th grade team who just get the ball and runs, head down till loses it. Yes, he won a few free kicks but a "smarter team/player" wouldn't concede some of those & have him worked out pretty quickly.

The way I read the draw, it will be either Ghana in Wellington on Wednesday at 4pm, or Portugal/Columbia  in Hamilton on Thursday at 5.30pm

Seems to be moved around a bit. From that narrow wide man? role to more central which I think he's more accustom.

He's our most artistic player.

And a good player too.

I wouldn't attempt to do player ratings, but

Tuiloma.... dear oh dear how many times did he lose the ball or give it away? Disappointing.

The one touch passing of the Myanese in the first half looked so classy compared to us running the ball till we got tackled.

Rufer's touch not close enough

Great cross from Wynn for the opener

Lots of energy from the right back Messenger

Brotherton nice header and strong game

" He's our most artistic player " 

Well if so, he's definitely left his paint brushes at home...very poor so far. I think it works out well him being suspended, as Bazeley can re-jig the personnel.

Is Billingsley still at school? I wonder how many others will be there at the next world cup too? How old is Patterson?

Yeah i'm glad he's out. Was really ineffectual and wasteful in both the Ukraine and USA games yet for some reason Bazeley left him on for the full 90 and dragged more dangerous attacking players instead. Don't know what Bazeley sees in him tbh.

I reckon our youngest player was/is our best player. Billingsley. Ex-Onslow junior. Like me.

and me!

Is 5-1 the biggest winning margin by any NZ football team at a FIFA world cup tournament?

Thought the young right back was pretty poor defensively.  The Burmese no 9 had him on a plate and we looked a lot more solid once he was replacef

Yeah a bit baffling: Lewis and Dyer seem to be Bazeley's blindspots...

Road trip to Hamilton anyone?

Re watched the game and wow did Myanmar collapse. Beating them is like scoring the Fat Chick at the club you did it but your not proud of it.

It's hard to know what to make of that performance, or of all 3 of our performances when you consider them together. I think we have some serious tactical issues, but why? Are our youngsters just tactically naive? Is Bazely setting the team up wrong? Has Hudson told the U20s to play how he wants which has clashed with how Bazely has had them playing before that? Did not playing qualifiers hurts us because we haven't had a chance to iron out issues?

We don't look like a team sometimes, just a collection of individuals, which in itself is weird given the fact that the core of the team have been playing together regularly for a couple of years.

It all makes it quite hard to judge players' individual performances because the system they are operating in doesn't really seem to be working.

Anyway, it's easy to get too caught up being analytical and critical when you could just sit back and enjoy a 5-1 win in a World Cup! It was a great night in the end, some nice goals. Myanmar's goal was sublime, that flowing passing move was a joy to watch. I just had a look at the official highlights though and they only showed the finish. I mean, it was a good finish but the whole move should be on there.

And our goal with the Rufer backheel was pretty special for a New Zealand team too :)

Oh yeah, and how good were the Myanmar fans? It was great to see a game in Wellington with a big, loud contingent of away fans

Its really hard to gauge where we are at.

Against Ukraine we looked ok and probably should have sneaked a win only to be blown out of the water by USA. But then last night, Ukraine destroyed USA 3 - 0.

Did we just have a really bad night against the USA? After all, when you look at Myanmar in all three games they were on even terms or noses in front at the end of the first half... and Fiji won a game 3 - 0  against European opposition and I believe we are certainly a step ahead of them. Are we as bad as we lament?

We certainly have some weaknesses but every team does... Argentina can't defend or finish apparently.. Myanmar did qualify after all against some traditionally strong Asian teams. Playing at home is an advantage, but the task was still pretty hard, not to mention another recent Asian Tournament win. They deserve to be there and respected.

To me the player with the most potential to kick on is Dyer (despite been our most frustrating player behind Lewis) he has great athletic ability and is technically ok. If a club can teach him to play with more control (hit more passes) and how to read a game more effectively he could prove a great future asset.

Hoping for a Hamilton game.

It's more than just looking at the results. Argentina had the same problem that us, they were not a team, just 11 players waiting for Correa to do something. We can't say we are playing well because we would likely qualify to R16 and Argentina not. The team have had some serious weaknesses, and some indiviual performances have been awful. It really looks like they are playing together for the first time 

I thought we were dreadful in the first half. Three or four passes across the back four then an aimless hoof. On the rare occasions it was played out of the back four to a mid-fielder their first instinct, even when they had time and space, was to play it straight back to the defender.

The second half was better and the lead up play to some of the goals was really very good and the finishing excellent.

As you would expect with our small player base and the quality of the teams and players at the tournament some of our players are struggling. Having said that some are holding their own but my observation would be that the coaching has not bought out the potential of many of the players - I wonder what Ernie could do with this team?

Aside from the obvious speed and skill of the players at the tournament my general observation is that they value possession far higher than we do - only as a last resort do they hoof it whereas that seems to be our default setting.

It's absolutely fantastic we will go through but whoever we end up playing we won't see much of the ball - if we kick it straight back to them it will be a long and painful night. The challenge for the coach will be to get the team to hang on to the ball for as long as they can.

P.S. The Myanmar supporters were soooo cool - their obvious happiness at just being at the game watching and supporting their team was infectious.

So who should I be cheering for over the next couple of days if I want our knockout game in Wellington? I can't work it out

haha.

Think we can eliminate Colombia from the mix, Portugal should top group C.

Myanmar supporters were a joy to see and hear..well done for creating the atmosphere and also to all the sponsors that got the SI crew here.  Wonderful effort.

Great result. Hard to gauge the performance because Myanmar were awful. They started bad then outplayed us for 25 minutes, and then just fell apart - what was up with the keeper with the last goal?

Thought Rufer was great and Billingsley put in another big effort, but his touch was off, apart from the goal and the lay off for Patterson. A bit scared about what Ghana or Portugal will do to us.

And the big question for me, how did Australia not qualify? Their team must have been rubbish if they couldn't beat the Asian teams we've seen here

Ahh, Bazley and Emblen, takes me back to the glory days of the one game of the NZ Knights I went to watch. Does seem a bit like a British old boys club doesn't it? CEO, Coach, U-20 coaches...

I associate Emblen as the assistant coach from the horror of Honiara and the disappointing last years of Ricki Herbert. 

Still are we still as down on Bazley after that 2nd half of football?

I was so disappointed when I saw us playing this way against Myanmar. We were lucky it worked out in the end. The first game and this game we mostly attacked through poor aerial crossing. We looked the most dangerous late in the game when we played the ball along the deck through the penalty area. Do you think this was a deliberate attempt to rope-a-dope or just odd tactics given Hudson's talk about alignment etc?

Being fair that Myanmar player was quite good- did you see his shot from distance?

but Brock did over commit to a challenge a couple of times, which let him get past easily, and then late in the second he was spent and getting done for pace every time. Still I thought he worked really hard marking a good player.

Having seen moments of Ridenton and Rufer playing quite good possession footy, the fact that we were trying to use Rufer as a battering ram who rarely got ball to feet did make me wonder. The Myanmar team passed the ball so well in the first half it was embarrasing- 6-8 great one touch passes moving 40 metres swiftly. But then they burned out, so again, is it possible it was an attempted rope-a-dope- conserve energy and then play late?

Two points.

1. Does the Myanmar national league only play 45 minutes of football? Three games three great halves.

2. Imagine how good we could be if our best midfield were playing in midfield instead of up front and Centre back.

Needs more Jeremy Christie

I'd take the Rufer of last night over anything I've seen previously.

Just to pick up on HN's point. Why are we experimenting with playing players out of position in this tournament when we have had the longest and best buildup of just about any NZ team. look at the last match

Rufer playing striker.....out of position, he's a midfielder

Tuiloma playing CB.....out of posiition, he's a DM

Billingsly playing wide attack.....out of position, he's a no9

te Awhiti playing DM...out of position , he's normally a wide defender 

Billingsly said that he's had trouble adapting to playing out of his normal position.....why the F**k is he having to learn a new position in the tournament when there has been such a long buildup

You have to really point the finger at the coach. He has had plenty of time to get this right. The team look disjointed and un coached. Maybe Bazeley just does not know how to coach Hudson's style. Someone said they look like a League one team.....maybe thats all Bazeley knows how to coach. I have seen plenty of these kids(Rufer and the other nix boys) playing good possession football. These kids know this style.....does the coach????????

It seems playing footballers out of position is a prerequisite for NZ coaches. This applies to the Women as well: so frustrating...