Bill Tuiloma (Charlotte FC | USA)

I have been talking to my football mates in Marseille. The word is that the club are very very happy about Tuiloma's development. They think he has made excellent progress after only 4 months at the club.

Bill is in a good position. O/M had as their three top DM's Romao, Cheyrou and Almafitano. Cheyrou is 35 and in his last season season and they sold Almafitano into the EPL. So Bill is definitly on the radar now. There is another young guy Imbula who has played DM  for a few games this season. But if they don't recruit anyone in the off season then Bill will be number three next year. Which means he will almost certainly be on the bench and will get game time.

This is great news for the AW's. OM think Bills natural position is DM. Thats exactly the player that the AW's need.....if he keeps progressing he could anchor the AW"S midfield for the next decade. 

http://in-the-back-of-the.net/2013/12/29/an-interview-with-bill-tuiloma/

Fantastic interview there Enzo!

Top work Enzo, great read.

QPR eh interesting

No imterest in Nix then?

Let me think... QPR, Olympique or the Nix? mmmm, decisions.... decisions.....

Shoulda stayed with Birko. Idiot

They train that little? Or did I misread that part...

Good work Enzo....nice interview.

 I'm surprised none of the mainstream press picked up on Bill coming back for Xmas. Would be a good story with plenty of interest.

Bill is in a great position. He's with one of the better clubs in Europe, who regularly play Champions League. They have a very good youth development program at the club(like the rest of France). If he keeps working hard and progressing then he will most likely get first team action. But more importantly he will get lots of time playing.....which is vital for young players to develop their game. Bill could well play in excess of 35 games this season.....with the regular U19 league games he has CL U19 games and also Cup games.

 Contrast that to the Nix situation where we have in Rufer and Ridenton two of the brightest young talents in NZ football. Problem is that in contrast to Bill these guys are getting SFA match time anywhere. They should be playing somewhere. Ideally they could have been loaned to the NZ Wanderers to get game time.....but there are eligibility issues moving back to the A-League????. Plus the Nix and NZF don't get on. The bottom line is two very promising young players are not playing..

Rufer ridenton thing sucjs. We need a NYL side baaad

Sucks

N.bomb I think the pro clubs know what there doing..

The intensity of the trainings plus a midweek game are on a different level. The need to rest up more not always good..

He's in the mix for the first team and will get a few chances in the next few weeks, there is a cup game apparently he may play in.

Any chance of you enlarging on that JV?

Only what read on here and heard on the podcast. Tug of war between ACFC, kids and Phoenix. NZF weren't keen on an arrangement so they signed him outright since they had the biggest wallet (unusual with ACFC and their trillions)

As was stated, the boy should be playing. He'll probably warm a bench for 3 years.

Good post Austin

The real no brainer part to this is that this really would have been another headache off the national bodies hands and they could keep their energy and finance on areas of more pressing need!! They could have given this team to Gareth and said 'here, it's yours on the proviso that you must have these certain players in the team for our development purposes' I am sure that would have worked. Rufer and Ridenton would be playing good minutes in a team I suspect would been built around them.

The new NZF CEO takes up his position in February. Maybe Welnix should extend an invitation for him to attend the Eden Park match on Feb 1st, for an unofficial friendly get-together in their suite? Catch him while he's still relaxed and open-minded....

On the bench for the game now against Monaco.

http://www.soccerway.com/matches/2014/01/26/france/ligue-1/association-sportive-monaco-fc/olympique-de-marseille/1479262/?ICID=HP_MS_03_03

Seems Bill is definitely in the 1st team frame at present. OM only 3 points behind PSG in Ligue 1.

Have to say this is very impressive - 4 months ago he was playing Northern League Div 1. Either that level of coalface football is way better than we knew, or OM scouts know their stuff better than some on this forum, as I recall comments along the lines of him not being that great.

Anyway, awesome that he is progressing quickly - maybe we just leave the players to sort out 2018 WC qualification and not worry about a coach for the AWs?

Bill is again on the bench for OM in their match against Toulouse, currently 50mins in with OM leading 2-1.

Anyone know if Bill has been getting regular game time for the Reserves ? Can only find information on UEFA CL reserve league games

Loco Bielsa now in charge at OM. Sure to be an interesting experience for tuiloma.

tuiloma is fit and fast - two bielsa prerequisites for his rampaging style

Reported from OM training that Bill has injured his knee.....out for three weeks at least but further medical examinations to follow.

Bad news for Bill. He  has been going really well at preseason training. OM's run of preseason matches starts next week. He had been training with an expanded senior squad. This was his big chance to impress OM's new coach Beilsa. This guy is well known for picking up promising youngsters and pushing them into the big time. OM have also not sorted out their player roster. Beilsa wants to have a real good look at what talent they have got before going to the player market. If Bill put in some top performances in the preseason games he might have snuck into the first squad.

This is kind of like Rojas.....you miss out on preseason stuff and you are playing catch up right from the start. I hope the knee isn,t too bad.

Is he training with the first team? Or is he with the youth team atm?

Bill played the full 90 mins for the OM Reserve team last Saturday. It was the first game of the championship season for the Reserves. From the team list it appears he was playing DM. They drew away 0-0. so it looks like Bill is has cemented a starting place in the Reserves. Could be good for him because if he does OK he will probably get a call into the seniors if there are injuries etc

I went and saw Marseille play weekend before last in there newly renovated 250 million euro Veledrome stadium. It now has a roof.....its a very impressive stadium....seats 67,000. Great atmosphere at the match(they lost 0-2).....there is something about sitting in a big stadium in Europe with the a big crowd(53,000) going off. The noise was deafening. Flares, fireworks.....it had everything. Best bits are when the East stand chants and the call is returned by the West stand...check it out on Youtube. 

I caught up with some mates from OM. The first thing I asked is hows Bill going. It seems he is doing OK but the concensus is that he is doing fine physically but is not yet up to first team status technically and tactically. They showed me an interview at the end of last season where the reporter asked the first team coach about Bill.

To paraphrase he said that Bill had a great Anglo work ethic....he always put in 100 % in training and always thanked the training staff after every session. He said he wished all his squad had the same work ethic. He did mention problems with communication....Bill is taking a while to adapt to speaking French(which is a surprise for a young person after a year of total immersion) It appears the club is happy with him and will put the effort into developing him as a player.

Huge year for Bill. The club is financial problems and needs to sell players to get the salary bill down(they sold their best player, the French international Valbuena to Moscow) They are short of defenders and have moved senior DM's back to CB to plug the gaps. With only a week or so until the transfer window closes they could enter the season under manned in midfield. If Bill can up his game he will have  golden opportunity to get first team football.

Part of this opportunity will come from their new coach Bielsa....the guy is a world coaching guru. He also is a big fan of throwing youngsters into the first team. After only 3 Ligue 1 games he has already played a 19 yo at CB and put a 16 yo attacker on in the game I saw.

An interesting aside is our new AW coach Hudson is a Beilsa disciple.....he has now got OM playing a 331 formation. They play a quick passing high tempo high pressing game. They haven't quite got it bedded in yet...1 win, 1 draw, 1 loss so far this season but it is very exciting to watch. If Hudson has got similar plans for the AW's then it could be an exciting ride. His theory is that with your wingbacks moving forward and back you always have an extra man on defense(5 back) and you always have an extra man on attack (5 forward). The key player is the central DM....everything goes through them. You need someone with a big engine, great vision and a very good passer of the ball off either foot(can we fast track Riera)

331?

4 keepers.

I assume 3331 which Bielsa had Chile playing, not sure Bilbao.

http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/06/08/marcelo-bielsa-chile-world-cup-2010-tactics/