Good points
The big question ?
Why are we not getting our young men in national World Cup squads?
The very few we have got in have had to go up north or apfa when it was here to get selected for training squads or final squad.
you just have to look at the Onehunga boys that get selected ( wynrs or well nix)
Western suburbs (ole) and obviously the lads from the Phoenix academy's.
I still believe that the clubs could invest in similar paths as these academy's ,I don't know the correct pathway or answer.
One thing that is for certain is we are not getting our kids recognised at national level.
All I here in Christchurch is we have a lot of developing clubs or coaches, developing for what?
1. Our players are not in a football environment where they can train/play with national-level quality players 5-6 times a week, 11 months a year.
2. Our players don't play in front of national selectors week in, week out; 2-3 x 3 tournaments a year - Napier U19, ACFC U17, national FTC is not enough; out of sight is out of mind.
3. There is no single pathway, much as NZF/Mainland might want you to think otherwise.
4. It is my observation that the talent pool isn't big enough in Chch for each club to attempt to do this. When Mainland attempted it via the much-maligned School of Football the clubs went ballistic because the federation was "stealing our players" (yet many of the younger players from that time are now pursuing their football in environments like Wee Nix etc, what does that tell you?) APFA had similar issues, likewise Coastal's Academy. I'm sure Wynrs/Onehunga Sports and Ole/Western Suburbs attract that criticism too. What SOF/APFA/Wynrs/Ole do is have a crop of real quality players (the best of the best) train and play together 5-6 times a week (in comparison FTCs train twice a week, but not as a team, and don't play as a team).
5. But that's only the first step. Due to small pond etc, a Chch club/academy needs to regularly play opposition from outside the region; and they have to play regularly in Auckland in the key lead-in time to national camp selections. Once they get beyond 16 or 17, if they're serious about having a crack, they have to leave Chch. An A-league club here, or a national coach based here, may change things :)
Wynrs started the first academy in Christchurch that I can remember.
Wynton was down himself to oversee the course that had one maybe two of his Auckland based coaches and Johann being the Chch based coach.
Kids did the school holiday intro to what was going to be an academy similar to that run in Auckland.
What I saw was better run sessions than any I'd seen put on at the CFA run camps, which in some cases looked like after school care sessions and fooling around. A fig waste of time in some instances.
Mainland or should I say Canterbury Football decided to keep the money pot in house set up their own coaching clinics.
So at that point we had locals Harry McCosh, Keith Howard and others running the various age grades for the CFA.
Can we look back at this being the start of a decline in what we have now for Mainland based players.
Getting invites to go to tournaments as a part of a Wynrs Academy or just make do with FTC squads.