Post World Cup Friendies Angst

Oh man, now I have to change my whole outfit or people are gonna think we're twins

What time is kickoff for the Wellington game?  Need to know so that I can book tickets without arriving during the half-time break.

7:30pm. It's on the link a few pages back.

Couldn't agree more. You speak to Reid, I'll speak to his grandma (who lives in Thames), and between as we'll ensure he comes over. Sorted.

None of us should be surprsied that those EPL stars and overseas stars won't make themselves available for the 2 home internationals on 9a nd 12 Oct.

I think you are being pretty unfair.

they'll come.

Only if Grant and Big Sam say they can.

Avram Grant is mates with Ricki, can't see him trying to mess things up. And I think the Admiral dictates terms to Allardyce, not vice versa.

The thing that saddens me most about the sports media and especially the football media in NZ is the complete lack of understanding and appreciation of just how important the coaching of the kids is to NZ's success.
The focus always ends up being on the All Whites and the whole "front window" angle. Ive been watching this for a long time now and also coaching for a long time and it never ceases to amaze me just how blind so many out there are.

The best capitalization on the All Whites success possible will be for more resources to be funnelled towards upskilling the coaches of those coaches who coach the 5-12 year olds. This is where the most important work is done but sadly its a point thats completely missed by so many, especially those in the media. By the time a player is 12 if they dont have the fundamental basic skills well drilled its too late.

Your point about getting the All Whites home to play so that the stars play and the crowds come and the income isnt hurt and the momentum is kept up is fair to a point. The trouble I have with it is that yet again it diverts from the most fundamentally important area of building momentum in the game.

Its sort of like the "Waynes World" quote of "if you build them they will come". So often here in NZ I see and hear football fans complaining that local football is of such poor quality that its not worth watching. Well the way to improve the quality is to produce a broader base of highly skilled players. More highly skilled players ultimately leads to more professional contracts and so on. Unfortunately the approach here is to build the Ferrari body and try and put a skoda engine in it.
While a meaningful All Whites game is great for the profile the weekly routine of training and playing for the kids has more of an inspiration on the younger kids than Winston Reid playing a game or two.
Properly trained and inspiring coaches have a huge impact on inspiring and enthusing kids to play.
Concentration of football stories by journalists on the All Whites doesnt inspire coaches or kids.
Over the last 15 years I havent once seen any so called football journalist do any article of any sort on the massive importance of the coaches of 5-12 year olds. Not once.
All Im seeing from your piece is more after the fact band wagon jumping.
I watched it all kick in to gear after the draw in Bahrain when in fact most serious football fans knew before the Bahrain away game just how close to the world cup we were. Our sports media are reactive rather than proactive, more likely to whinge than inspire. The old "football has shot itself in the foot" saying a lazy and easy one to drag out. Bet its used if Winston or Ryan dont come back for these games.

However if they dont come back for these games there wont be a single sports journalist who will have done the leg work and research to know there is positive stuff at junior level taking place. We have more registered footballers than Croatia and despite the fact they didnt qualify for the world cup they produce a far far broader range of highly skilled players than we do. Why cant we?, similar player base. If we moved some focus to what actually produces superbly gifted players maybe the local game could be more exciting to football fans to follow.

This quote of yours "After the World Cup, every football journalist (including myself) stressed that two things needed to happen if NZF were to capitalise on World Cup success: securing the services of Ricki Herbert was the first, and they seem well on their way to achieving that. The second was to secure meaningful matches in the next FIFA international window, and with matches against Honduras and Paraguay on the menu NZF have certainly done the job."

The focus is in the wrong place for meaningful long term sustained success. To capitalize on the world cup we more than anything need to do something about making sure we are ahead of the curve with respect to junior coaching and the quality of junior coaches.

Winston or Ryan coming home for a friendly game wont have as big an impact long term as highly skilled and motivated junior coaches will.

In late Sept or early Oct Three Kings Football club runs a small whites tournament, I bet there wont be a single so called NZ Football journalist there to see what happens and I bet not a single so called NZ football journalist even remotely understands the importance and value of whats on display or where the real inspiration and encouragement for the players present comes from.

Thats why we will continue to see these mind numbingly off target articles full of wretched hand wringing over players coming home to play in friendlies. The way forward is to produce highly skilled players and to do that more of the resources need to be directed in that direction.

Summary?

we need to coach the coaches so they coach our juniors better. (I think that was the jist of it)aitkenmike2010-08-23 14:07:48

Coach the coaches. Remarkable.

That NZF should be using the plot of Wayne's World as their strategic plan (actually the quote used by Stack is from Wayne's World 2, so it's not clear which version of the movie he's referring to).

technically, its actually from field of dreams but anyway...

Well if we're splitting hairs, the actual quote from Wayne's World 2 is "if you book them, they will come" anyway (Jim Morrison's advice to Wayne in the desert with the naked Indian).

I think this all just underlines how confusing Stack's argument is.

He probably spent a good 20 minutes writing that too. Poor soul

No. 

I think it goes beyond coaches though.  There is only so much a coach can do in a one hour training per week.  I suspect (with no evidence to back this up) that most top players in this country spent far more time with their parents down at the local field. 2ndBest2010-08-23 14:58:19

OK then, so just addressing Stack's point seriously for a minute.

Isn't this why NZF  has put $4m into the New Zealand Football Foundation? (in addition to the other things they already do at grassroots). That's something Stack doesn't mention at all as a positive benefit from the World Cup.

And yes, there was some press coverage of this back in May. Admittedly not at the levels of  "RICKI MUST STAY" or "ALL WHITES MUST PLAY", but it's not like it didn't happen.

And if you're going to mis-quote Wayne's World, that's just unforgivable.


terminator_x2010-08-23 14:59:10

Good All Whites games = 5-12 year olds being inspired to turn up to training. Without that, all these new coaches won't have nuthin' to do.

On the subject, I prefer Stack's story about how he was in Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon, and he had to find 100 brown M&Ms in a brandy glass at midnight, or Ozzy wouldn't go on.Doloras2010-08-23 15:55:07

If you believe that you are deluded. When we had the big surge in kids starting to play the game in the late 90's it had nothing to do with the All Whites. Ryan Nelson hadnt even made a US side then.

*Nelsen.

Its funny, lots of correcting of insignificant things and snide remarks but no real acknowledgement of a big problem. The truth is thats because so many are unfortunately blind to what keeps us from overtaking Australia.

*that's.

I agree with you regarding coaching the coaches Stack. I've said similar things on here before. I also agree with others though, while the coaching needs to be better, the kids need to have the passion to want to turn up and learn as much as they can in the small amounts of time there is for training. Watching their hero's play good opposition here will effect that.

Stack, you will be pleased that TV1 at least tried to run a story on NZF spending some money on the kids in tonights 6pm news. Its a start.

They have a grand scheme called 'Whole of Football'. 

There was a presentation on it earlier in the year, chock full of corporate terms and not many clearly defined deliverables.  It is a plan to solve exactly what Stack is on about but I've seen nothing more on it since John Herdman's original call to arms.

Unfortunately many in the room thought that might be the case.  Hopefully we get proven wrong.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH !!!!


you failed.

it doesn't even make sense.

Pardon?

Stack, I think it's drawing a pretty long bow to state that that means there's no acknowledgment of the problem. Let's look at where the $11.6m NZF got from the World Cup has gone so far:

- $4.6m to the players (40%)
- $4.0m to the New Zealand Football Foundation (34%)
- $3.0m to, I dunno, probably paying off loans and sh*t

So after paying off those greedy players by far the most significant investment of the World Cup winnings is into the NZ Football Foundation. And OK, so there's been nothing concrete emerge from that yet (it was only set up in May) but from what I can see its entire focus will be on exactly the sort of issues you describe. If you read this page it actually identifies "providing and creating good coaches" for precisely the age group you you talking about. Surely this is some progress?

whoooooo, you are a tiresome little baby.

Buffy's correction of Stack's post was not only grammatically correct but also humorous in the context of this thread.

 

You know you're dead wrong when Term X sticks up for me.

Probably because I am not particularly articulate in getting my thoughts across the main gist of my rant is lost.
Basically i get frustrated by our own football media and its lack of ability to go deeper than the superficial issues.
I firmly believe that we as a country are perfectly capable of producing a broader base of players with technical excellence and that we are perfectly capable of knocking Australia off its perch.
The most important coaches in the country are those guys taking the kids from ages 5-12. We have pockets of brilliant coaches around the country producing some very talented kids but we need more. We need more coaches going on the NZF coaching courses that are available.
However i take issue with the idea that capitalizing on the World Cup success revolves around getting our very best players back for friendlies. Capitalizing on the success to me means inspiring more people to become better coaches and become a cog in the big wheel that produces great players. Wish the football media could work that out but sadly those guys doing the most important work arent doing the big glamour jobs.
The game was growing in popularity among kids before Ryan Nelsen played for DC United and with respect to having a major influence on the kids I think the Phoenix do a great job of that already.
I was at footy training tonight and missed the TV1 piece but thats nice to hear.
We are about to go through an era that the Aussies have already been through and thats the one where our national side lacks depth to force meaningful competition for places among the best players. Once we get more players playing in the major leagues then players will find they need to take part in friendlies to maintain a hold on their position in the side. But the way to do that is from the bottom, produce more and more technically gifted players.
We have some awesome coaching courses available. last year I did the new level 3 course that John Herdman has developed and in 12 years of coaching courses this was absolutely the best, quite inspirational and its had a major impact on my own methods. Its no coincidence that this season the 3 sides i coach are having outstanding seasons. its not because im any good but its because the new coaching processes i learned have allowed the players to develop and learn faster than under my previous methods. The information is available but we need the football media to help get the word out not take the lazy easy option of reporting stories because they have some minor controversy attached.

You probably already know this but just in case you didnt. those so called greedy players actually bailed out NZF via the players association fund and the payment to them was worked out well before the world cup so that if they did make it they would get back some of the money they sent NZF's way. To be fair to the players when that was all worked out making the world cup wasnt a probable outcome.