Southern Football (incl Southern United) (Part 2)

Personally, I want the Dunedin teams to do well as I am desperate for this league to continue. 3 competitive Dunedin teams is a must. Not to mention I’m getting rather sick of hearing about how good the Mainland teams are - bar 2 they’re not very strong. I guess it’s just amusing seeing your enthusiasm to write “neutral” opinions fade like the Uni season - similar to the Uni write ups. Lot of hyperbole early doors just need to ensure you keep perspective and not let the “total football” blur your observations. 

Here is our latest match report if you wan't to have a read https://bit.ly/2TJUy61.

No doubt that the SFL campaign has been more difficult, our club resources have been spread a little thin trying to run a SFL team as well as two Women's Premier teams.

We will be back in 2020 stronger for the experience and with a few new initiatives driven by the University itself we are happy things are heading in the right direction.

Too busy with Moffside

2019 Dunedin Team of the year 

GK Catto 

LB Findlay 

CB O,Farrell

CB Horner 

RB Spear 

RM Anderson 

CM Cox 

CM Ridden 

LM Wade 

ST Neil 

ST Anderton

Thoughts??????

Kiore has been very strong for Cavy. Horner definitely the top CB. Some good young promising centre backs around to come through too with Langley and Collings. 

Kiore for Wade. Horner the best player in the league for the 21st season in a row, hope too see him playing again. Would like to see a two game league to qualify for the Southern league next year. Good to see Wanaka exceed expectations. 

With Tim not doing the Southern United thing though, he has enough in those legs if you could convince him, surely Alex Cox gets a shot. Apparently Panzer is back. One of the centre backs must be able to actually run. Neither Panzer or Last can hit a ball. Cox is no Gibson yet but he doesn’t need a Zimmer frame either. 

Who's inline for the awards this year?

jordan spain in

Spain? He had been up in Wellington as well, was there no space in Dragons or Youth as its my understanding hes still U20 from what I had been told, Interesting selection abit of an inconsistant player, be interesting how much game he will get here, surely we have better players locally? 

Your thinking of the brother, Aaron, who plays for Team Wellington I believe. Jordan has been involved with CU youth previously and is currently in Fiji with the u23s. Better than any right back in the local league.

I think it's quite encouraging that one of the country's best young players sees Southern as a good place to come and develop

.....or simply not good enough to crack into the Canterbury ranks and sees Southern as a far easier proposition. Either way again not much faith shown in the Football South playing talent. 

... who would be playing in Football South Fed who is better than Jordan Spain given he is away playing for nz 23s

Genuinely interested to hear who is rated that highly locally right now

Have you watched Jordan Spain play or are you simply picking on reputation ? 

He’s not good enough for the Dragons and he is not that much better than local talent to warrant the expense and the opportunity for development lost. Didn’t the Timaru lad Deeley keep him out of the U17 World Cup team as a fullback in 2017 ? 

My understanding is that did not look at the Dragons - did not trial, but elected to go with Southern. Maybe a hang over on how some  players were dealt with under previous management. 

Ben Deeley's a left back, Spain's on the right. Is by no means a bad pickup for Southern and I really can't see how this is negative

Southern bringing in Aston Villa and Colombian legend Juan Pablo Angel. 43 years of age, unclear what role he'll have

They described him as a guest, so maybe a dinner and a coaching session?

They are announcing tomorrow

Thought so too, not uncommon to see Southern doing that - they're hyping it up a fair bit

Almost reaching #PhoenixAnnouncement hype levels

he's opening the Logan Park Turf

pretty sure there was no spot in Dragons was still eligible for youth, I guess alot of expense to have him, instead of a Southern Youth League player stepping up, watched a few Cash Tech games he played in and wasn't a standout always been an average player, but has the height. Shame have to get outside players from the area, not good for development of local players, what a shame

Looking forward to seeing the improvement this season. 

Any chance the squad has been named? Would also be nice to know the club they play for?

Statement on Southern United

New Zealand Football today confirmed that Southern United has been sanctioned for fielding an ineligible player in its ISPS Handa Premiership match week one game against Tasman United.

New Zealand Football received a protest regarding the eligibility of two Southern United players in the above match.

Following a comprehensive review of the evidence including submissions made by Southern United, the NZF Competitions Administrator found that Southern United fielded one player not named on the club’s official list of players.

As a consequence of the player taking part, the match is declared to be forfeited by Southern United and shall be recorded as a 3-0 win for Tasman United. The ISPS Handa Premiership table has been amended accordingly.

This is in accordance with regulations 18.2 of the National League Regulations 2019/20 and regulations 13.12 and 34.1 of the NZF Disciplinary Code.

The Competitions Administrator has a significant level of sympathy for Southern United’s situation, however notes that the NZF Disciplinary Code provides no discretion for matters of eligibility.

Southern United has confirmed it will appeal against the decision to the NZF Disciplinary Committee

I was amazed to find that Lutz Pfannenstiel who played for Dunedin Tech and for Otago United in our national league is now a beIN Sports commentator for their Bundesliga games on Sky TV. 

The legendary former goalkeeper who is the only man to have played professionally in all six continental associations (27 clubs).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutz_Pfannenstiel

He was co-commentator for the Bayern-Freiburg game this week on beIN Sports on ch.57 on Sky..

He's also a journalist for the BBC, CNN, German TV etc., and a director of Fortuna Dusseldorf.

At the height of his career he made 12 first team appearances for then English Premier League side Wimbledon.

Had two seasons as reserve keeper at Nottingham forest in the Premier League too.

Tough times for southern football at the moment. Horrible showings from the Youth league team finishing last, finishing last in the NAGT federation cup and points being deducted.  The Southern United mens team and the individuals selected in tournament teams are the only light in an otherwise bleak season for southern united. This is a view from the north island, tell me if I'm wrong.

lol? Ya spud. women's team and futsal both performed well. men's team is performing better than ever. haters gonna hate but sheit, go crawl  back into that pipe from whence you came.

WOW really? 

If Southern hadn't fielded an ineligible player against Tasman they'd be 4th in the ISPS Handy!

as SAWU pointed out the womens team and Futsal have performed well.

the turn around in Southern Football over the last few years has been incredible 

@The Journey Fan, Yep Really, Bootit is right... you just might need to use your journalist skills and do some investigating. 

I highlighted the achievements of the mens side. I was saying the youth and nagt sides were unsuccessful and the admin error has let the mens side down. The showings of the Nagt and youth teams, make me question the role of the southern united academy. As previously stated the mens team are a light in an otherwise bleak season holistically.

I acknowledged the success the senior team is experiencing. However, the youth and nagt teams results were undesirable. I'm not "hating" instead placing emphasis on the lack of success in some areas of southern football. 

What’s your problem with SUFC if you live in the NI ? - given the rubbish budgets down here and the domination of traditional winter clubs not giving any support to the summer national league teams ANY success is massive progress. Your way off about the role the Academy which looks to be producing good players who have a better chance of pushing on down here than other places in NZ. Much better players than in previous years

The problem with the NAGT is the best players are not selected, all comes down to who will pay the $1000 plus a season for each individual player. Guess they need to be sustainable somehow.

I acknowledge the immense achievement of southern players selected as mvp/golden glove/ tournament team at NAGT, however, holistically the academy has not improved the placing of teams. They are still finishing dead last like previous years, hence why the academy is in question.

The individual selections and recognition IS the achievement for Football South.

It's a numbers game.

FootballSouth has a total population base of ~350 k

Compare tat to

Mainland ~700

Waibop ~700

Central ~450

Capital ~400

Auckland / Northland 1.6mil between them

Other regions simply have more players to choose from. 

Look at it like this, 1 in xxx players is standout, 2 are very good, 4 are good, 6 are decent and you go downhill from there.

Add to that relative federation population density and make the generalisation that kids from small country towns don't have as much competition at higher levels, so don't have quite the same development opportunities or peer competition, those numbers skew in favour of closer populations: Auckland/Northland, Capital, and Waibop with Hamilton and Tauranga each being twice the size of Dunedin, They also tend to have bigger budgets and economies of scale.

Central, being scattered from A-hole to Africa scew down, but start with a better population base, as do Mainland who get a boost from a main population base of chch, but also have the issues of enormous spaces between places.

Then where Southland might produce 1 standout, 2 vg, 4g, 6 decent and round their squad out with some average players, Waibop meanwhile would have 2 standout, 4vg, 8g and 12 decent and don't need to compromise further down the squad.

Any FS team NOT finishing last is punching above their weight.

The job of any academy or football development organisation is not to produce winning teams for things like NAGT, but (as alluded to by 7thFed) to produce quality individual players that might go on to bigger things. 

**broad estimates of numbers and generalisations used to illustrate the point

Are we just going to ignore the comment about winter clubs not supporting the summer league team? 

Lets make it pretty clear - when Southern (as Football South) stopped supporting the winter league clubs, thats when the winter clubs stopped supporting Southern. There is no presence from the Southern players (as players or coaches or managers) for those who play in the winter league. The disappointing fact that only a handful of players from the winter league make it through to Southern is a symptom of that but its more concerning that only that handful play in the winter season, which means the quality there is not a good foundation for our federation. 

I am really glad that there have been successes at the NAGT level, because thats where most of the resources have been going, particularly from those that could be supporting at the winter league level. 

agree with you 100% it would be great to see all of Southerns players all play winter football too, why don’t they register with clubs and play through the winter ? What’s the reason why they don’t ?

Why did Football South stop supporting winter clubs ? and what did they stop doing that they did before ?