Vs Mexico 1st Leg Thurs 14th 9:30am SS2

Are they allowed to call up new players to replace the suspended ones?

Steven old called up

Dont give your ph to workmates

Considering we are only allowed 18 on the bench and took 23, with 3 players out, those 3 can still be training fodder so why would you call anyone up with 20 players still available? Anyone called up would have to be NZ based for a start and they wont be starting players or they would be in he squad already. If you bought in Boxall to be a squad filler, you would seriously fuck your Phoenix link. Is there anyone in NZ not picked that would be a starter? Nope.

Hopefully that answers your question.

Maybe I should hit up Ricki for a game, I mean at least I play for a club unlike 2 in the team, I can hoof a ball downfield, I'm younger than Vicelich. So disappointed with the display. There are lots of younger kids playing worldwide now in professional set ups and get amateurs and unattached players. Wtf!

Mayber go the old school irish route. Look also to bolster numbers with ancestry players

Thank God Tommy Smith speaks the truth.

Hey Herbert, take notice of your captain.

from the nzherald

All Whites captain Tommy Smith concedes that the team got their tactics and game plan wrong today against Mexico.

The New Zealand side were thrashed 5-1 at the Azteca Stadium and in the first half especially seemed willing to let the home side have possession, content to defend from in front of their own penalty area. The approach worked for the first 30 minutes but was always going to be difficult to maintain.

"We dropped far too deep which allowed them too much time on the ball," said captain Tommy Smith. "We were constantly under pressure in that first half - you can never hold out for 90 minutes if you haven't got a touch of the ball. Eventually they will score."

At one stage in the first half one Mexican player left the ball in the centre circle, before another team-mate came to pick it up. The All Whites had to maintain a defensive approach, but they looked to take the cautious approach too far.

Sure are but probably no point. Can have 23 in the match day squad (as we did today). You never know, Ricki might call in Barron, Mulligan and Elliott to complete the farewells....

Anyone want one of these for the home leg? Got bored and turned one of Smithy's ideas as we saw the team sheet with the list of clubs into an actual idea.

Complete rubbish performance from All-Whites.  Now time for some new boys.  Need to bring in Roux, Sigmund, Tuiloma, Smeltz.  Defence (or non- defence) played like headless chickens.  All out attack now....!!! and bye-bye Ricki

Home game tickets going for $5 bucks. Buy one get 4 free!. 

Shame for Noah Hickey that he fell out with Ricki or he'd be a guarantee starter. Hasn't played football for years? Perfect.

                       moss

roux/clapham   sigmund   durante    smith 

henderson       james          mc glinchey

rojas            smeltz               barbarouses/brockie

told gold covered seats for the second leg are now going for $8 dollars on trademe.

Yeah. Blame Ricki. Its all his fault. Keyboard warrior has all the answers.

Had they played the way you wanted them to Brett, do you think they would have won? Come on, put your coaching skills on the line here.

I didn't believe it myself but its true

http://www.trademe.co.nz/travel-events-activities/event-tickets/sports/auction-661573941.htm

http://www.trademe.co.nz/travel-events-activities/event-tickets/sports/auction-662286052.htm

Good, better that bandwagoners aren't there in fairness.

Sad but hardly a shock - NZ sports "fans" actually shown to be band-wagon jumpers - support for the Breakers another prime example. Might mean though that some genuine football fans attend rather than those there for the occasion. And hopefully the knobs who bought tickets hoping to flog them at a profit have been severely stung

$1.50.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/travel-events-activities/event-tickets/sports/auction-662514567.htm

I thought James was superb (in comparison to the rest of the team) when he came on. The few times I have seen James, I have thought that he looks like a quality player. His season is over in Finland right? I think Ernie should take a good look at signing him or bringing him to the Nix on loan. Would happily see him replace Manny or Lia in midfield. 

I think it is disappointing that many people are considering not going to the home leg in Wellington now. I think we should get right behind the team and support them to the end. It was always going to be a tough ask and our players ARE technically worse than the Mexicans, there is no doubt about that. However I strongly believe that Herbert and NZF got a lot wrong. I can understand why we would park the bus, but I always thought that playing a negative containing style of football will give you negative results. We didn't believe in ourselves or back ourselves to play football in the first half. As soon as we won the ball back there was no desire to try and get the ball down, string a few passes together and play a bit of football. All we did was hoof the ball right back to them. There is only so much pressure that you can soak up before the opposition will score, it was pretty much inevitable. I know it is easy to say now, but if we selected a different lineup (Roux, Tuiloma, James, Rojas), and encouraged the team to be positive, play their natural game and back themselves, would the outcome be different? Perhaps it would, perhaps it wouldn't. At least if you play positive you have a chance of a positive outcome. I don't think the Mexicans would have expected us to come out and attack and if we took that risk maybe it could have given us a slightly better result. I don't think Mexico are very strong defensively and we have the players (if they are selected by Herbert) to cause a few problems. I have no problems with Ricki's tactics for this leg, but I do think we could have looked at this approach.

I will be at the game in Wellington and I'm still looking forward to it. Hopefully we get a decent crowd and people get behind the team. We won't qualify for Brazil, but maybe we have a chance of beating Mexico in Wellington. Stranger things have happened. We need to select a better lineup though. Give the young guys a go. Start Tuiloma, Roux, Rojas, James. I will be very very disapointed if we don't give these guys a go and Herbert employs the same tactics with the same team. 

really? who do you think is going to remember how we played in 5 years time? the score is all that will be remembered. even if we had played with fire and attacked and lost 5-1 the score is all that matters - Ricki won't survive this - the next test is to see what NZFC do.

One of t6hose was listed pre today.  I listed one ticket of my 4  last week to close last nite.  Got back most of what I paid so was happy.  Still going to watch a good game and support..

I know people who didn't buy tickets beforehand on the assumption this would happen.

dont forget my kiwi friends  the ALTITUDE FACTOR...you can see it if you watch some parts, the bouncing of the ball is different and it moves like a stone, they knew every parcel of the field, they made it to make it hard for you, there are some part of the games, that the kiwi players were puzzled how the ball bounce and rebounds , actually the first goal, came from that , from a turnover,  altitude factor was massive 

The bright side is that they may have some issues playing there, but the difference is impossible

Herbert's tactic lasted untilt the 2nd goal, then wood, who had a good game, almost got a screamer, and in the following play it came the 3rd from a counter attack,  they gave you the ball and they kill it off.  Check out that after 60 m Herrera replaced his 2 attacking midfielders that were not from the altitud area, they were worn out,  and one thing to remember is that  Maza rodriguez brought down wood with a nasty foul, and the idiot crooked ref , just talked to him, when wood fouled him the ref awarded him the yellow,....it is also the business bar Herbert's tactic...a big money pot is at stake

What is this NZFC you are talking about?