No habla Espanol - the NZFC bitch fight

Says more about the SPL!!

alireggae - just a few quick points: terminator_x2011-11-22 16:48:38

I dont need or want your appreciation Dale

giggles

Duly noted

Thank you

For someone who hates us so much Jordybean is here a looot

I dont hate anybody bro

Yeah Terris maybe stretching it a bit!!
although always thought he was quite a handy player
whenever we played Canterbury
Pearce maybe a little bitch but he is a useful player
and more important to Waitak than Krishna for mine
as for Thomas how long do you want to wait until he stops growing!!
Surely the underage players Wellington are required to have should be Kiwis?
So maybe Marinovich and Lovemore could fit in there?
And id say Tim Payne too if he wasnt going to Blackburn

Marinovic would only become an option if he got booted out of Germany, as long as he's a chance there Phoenix won't touch him.

Payne was being looked at by the Phoenix for this season but the Blackburn gig came up so he's in the same boat with Marinovic now.

Lovemore I don't rate at all, think he'll be struggling to make it as a professional footballer.

Lovemore got something though because of his pace
not many players ive seen in NZ that quick
admittedly he aint got a clue what to do with it!!

True! He's got the pace  and (unfortunately) that's about it.
Very poor first touch, wrong positioning, can't read the game at all etc. etc....

Lovemore is poor at best...however he is quick and can look ok at times against some poor asb defences.

Terris to un-coordinated.

Auckland City coming off an average performance but are playing a dreadful Manawatu side this weekend...scoreline guesses? im going with 5-1

As a matter of interest what is the age for the mandatory young players in the A-League and how many do Clubs have to have?

3 under 23 players I think (or could be 3 x 21 year olds)

Tim Payne for sure and he was a Phoenix target before he went to Blackburn.

Lovemore. i used to think this kid was dynamite. Then he missed a sitter in Colombia and he really has been only a 20min footballer for Waitakere.

Pearce is useful but when I watch him, I just think he thinks he is the star of the show. To be fair, he is a good footballer, but Emblen plays a team brand and in teams, you don't need egos.

Thomas. What I meant was that he is a big lad but I am not sure he has figured out how to play in his own body yet. He seems a bit ungainly at times but the potential is definitely there. He also could do with buying a full haircut rather than the bit that gets missed at the back. Makes him definitely look like a tron bogan

I agree that the youth at the Phoenix should be Kiwi and definitely believe that Herbert has got that one wrong.

But on the other hand, sitting on the bench at the Phoenix vs playing every week in the nzfc.

I know. I raised this a couple of pages back and I'm not sure if its better to be fodder in a pro environment or play at a lower level. Its definitely a lower level when Nathan Cooksley is the captain of Manawatu

A lot of nzfc sides seem to train full-time though. Sitting on the bench for the Phoenix is not better than playing every week in the nzfc. Maybe if the Phoenix had a world class team of coaches that an nzfc side doesn't have,and the chance to play in decent reserve team games they'd be better off here..but we have neither.

It's a no-brainer in my opinion.

I am fairly certain that the number of players who have gone straight from the NZFC to professional football without going to the Phoenix is 1 - Chris Wood - and his scouting had nothing to do with playing in the NZFC really.  Players don't get signed out of the NZFC.

Completely agreed with JD.

Fulltime training in professional environment is huge.

In addition, even if RH give them a limited playing time very often that would be more then enough for other coaches in the A league to recognise talent. Remember, Brockie played of the bench and played well in he last 20 minutes scoring goal against Sydney. Those 20 minutes opened other doors in the A league for him, In ASB it would go unnoticed.
Same thing for some of the ASB players, chance playing for Phoenix would be a huge boost to their career.
Unfortunately, playing in ASB will never earn professional contract to any of the players. Even, those who went to FIFA Club  World Cup, how many of them got pro contract? NIL.

Another big downside is the rule that kiwis are foreign players in the A league. I am sure a few more would be successful with other clubs.

Finally, Tegal, do you think that some of the ASB players would play worse then current Nix squad?

Tim Payne
Luis Esteves
Are just two off the top of my head and Fabrizio Tavano
Liam Graham and Marinovic all overseas not sure if pro or not but none of them ever played for Wellington

Payne and Esteves went to academy set-ups, so it's not really professional football in its traditional meaning.

Marinovic was keeping (on and off) for his club's second team which was playing at amateur level in Germany, although I believe that one of the first team keepers left in the European summer which seemingly suggested Marinovic could have a spot in the first team, but haven't followed it very closely over the last few months so don't know if Marinovic managed to get into the first team squad or not.

Dan Keat springs to mind. Craig Henderson as well. TW but never Nix.

Straight from NZFC to professional football Stu.  Three years at college is not straight.

Wasn't Keat playing TW after college then went pro? Or was that more a brief hiatus/guest appearance?

He did play a couple of SUmmer holiday games but he was drfated out of college so to me that is stright from college to professional.

Isnt Payne going to sign a pro contract though? Thats why he has to wait till January when he is 18
But wouldnt Wellington do a similar thing in terms of Academies
if FFA let them ie sign young players on part-time contracts or whatever status they call it to play in the youth/reserve grade
I doubt they or any other A-League club could/can afford over 40 fulltime players

Yeah, I think this is pretty much what the new owners have in mind and have been talking about without really giving any detail.

'The Warriors Model'.

'The Warriors Model'

I didn't know which way I leant on this until I read your piece. Made up my mind for me... Definitely better to be a pro

Michael Built to Northampton

Another Hamilton Boy... just had to throw that in there.

Again Michael Built went to Northampton as a junior

If you need immigration help,there is a really good immigration lawyer amongst us.  this name is AucklandPhoenix.  Give him a PM.

Training run for Auckland City today in my opinion. The game didnt even need a referee.

Just like to add if ricki herbert reckons he doesnt get feedback from asb coaches then someone should send him the dvd of todays game because i know it got filmed.

Hogg was Bale like, quick, sets up goals from fullback, was up n down and when needed he kept the ball and dont think the lad lost a header.

Mulligan was quality. No doubt theirs more to his demise at the Phoenix. Easily best passer of the ball in NZ Football.

Corralas scored one of the best goals if seen in this league. I hope their will be footage of this for all too see.

Hopefully clean sheet will give young Jacob a confidence boost, although he only had to make one save.

I think Manawatu could be slightly worse than Waikato and thats not great for the league.


All the best to ACFC in Japan.

I went and watched today. Corrales scored one of the best goals scored at this level and the goal scored by Tade was sublime in the set up. Auckland deserved their 5 and could have made it embarrassingly more so. I think the 1st one by Danko was offside and a few people in the stand also kinda thought the same.

Objectively, Manawatu chose to sit off and in the first half, I don't think they made a tackle. They also pushed high with the defence and all the guy Andreu had to do was chip it over the top with some nice soft floaters. Corrales was easily man of the match and he gave Nathan Cooksley an absolute nightmare time up the right flank. Embarrasingly, Cooksley was given man of the match when he should have been dragged 25mins into it. He was worse than a park level footballer and I don't think he even cared to stand within 10y of Corrales and think about marking him.

Mulligan is the best footballer in the league but to be fair, he and Auckland were allowed to play and given the time and space with no pressure to do so. They did all of their stuff easily with out any pressure from Manawatu. When you take that into context, its easy to see why they play quite well - cause other teams are nowhere near as good and because they have no idea how to defend that style of play, they sit off and let them play. The Chinese guy Nobi up front was a passenger when he should have considered chasing the ball along the back 4 a bit more. Sure it might not have been the game plan, but to just sit and watch and let Auckland do their thing was even dumber. Take away their time on the ball and make them choose decisions under pressure and force the mistake. That was never going to happen. Cory Chettleburgh, if he was seriously in consideration for a Phoenix contract then Ricki must have rocks in his head. I always thought he had something about him until today. He was a complete also ran. While its hard when you have 5% possession, it even harder when he lofted that many balls into touch or took a quick freekick to a team mate 5y away with 3 ACFC players up his ass in his own half.

Auckland looked really good but to be fair, I think their undoing in Japan might be the Kiwi players (exclude Mulligan and Vicelich from that) whose first touch is a little off. You can see the skill of the imports and the time their first touch creates. Under pressure in the CWC, they will have nowhere near as much time on the ball and the first touch of Hogg, Pritchett, Coombes and Feneridis will let them down because they will then have to regather and make decisions under pressure. Another (and the last) criticism of Auckland was the amount of times they went back from an attacking position when there was a clear easy option going forward. Ramon has really coached them well in terms of keeping possession but I think he may have over coached it where the players will not take even the remotest risk of making even an 80-20 pass. I can recall a few times in the 2nd half when they broke and running 3 at Manwatu's back 4 - ACFC have the skill and pace but yet they get over half, slow it, allow Manawatu to put 10 men behind the ball again and it was frustrating. When you are 5 up, you either bring the kids on, or you take the risk and see what happens. Manawatu were never going to have a clue about how to shut it down so it begs to defy why so often they wanted to get organised. Other teams against them will not do the same in return.

Otherwise it really was a team that completely and totally outclassed the opposition and the 5 nil score line did not do it justice.

Credit to the 248 crew who actually kept their chants on Auckland and clean today so well played gentlemen.