Huawei Wellington United Phoenix Academy Football School of Excellence - WeeNix

Aaron Mcfarland is someone I would be looking at. He has been successful with Auckland City, most successful NZ coach at a world cup with the u17s. And he did so by actually getting them to play a more all round style of football. He comes accross very well in interviews and knows much more about NZ youth players than anyone at the Phoenix. Picking anyone is a bit of a gamble, I don't have a problem with Greenacre but I am also keen to get some outside ideas in.

IMO wouldn`t be up to it.....would become a Ricki puppet

Much more?  Huge call.  Gould.

Always thought the 9 academy players looked like Gould selections

With the finishing school starting up, will the OFC be interested in getting involved? They gave that scholarship to Brian Kaltack last season. Now the set up is better organised, maybe they could look at doing similar with any other young players with promise.

Even a Yellow Fever Youth Scholarship Iniative !!

What happened to those poor buggers who were nominated last year? Still waiting by the phone?

Corey Adams ??            At Least 2 of the 5 made it into the "Finishing School"

Yeah that's him. Yeah and one of those two would have been quite likely to win it too IMO.

Yeah.  Profuse apologies to everyone.  The forum trainwreck has stuffed everything.

All fair points.  I'll give a milkshake to anyone who can convince the Phoenix to officially get the word "grooming" into the name.  Actually, lets try and call it the Youth Grooming school for good measure and see who applies...

However, I do take issue with the idea that we should be implementing an English football culture.  I'm not an England hater by any means but the reality is that the core English coaching ideology is looking increasingly outdated.

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1: The best coaches in NZ that have toiled away for years may not be a patch on Greenacre. To be fair to NZ, we understand rugby instantly because its our culture. The English understand football instantly because its their culture. The toiler may not have anything on Greenie simply because of a culture reason much like a 35 year veteran rugby coach from Ukraine has nothing on Pat Lam (arguably the worst Super 15 coach right now) because of a culture thing.

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However, I do take issue with the idea that we should be implementing an English football culture.  I'm not an England hater by any means but the reality is that the core English coaching ideology is looking increasingly outdated.

[/quote]

This.... Don't believe for a minute that because you are English then you have some innate ability that makes you a better coach. That is BS. Same as if you are a Brazilian then you must be a brilliant player. That is the worst kind of cultural stereotyping you can get.

I agree with JD....the English model has not proven to be succesful on the international stage. At its worst its plain ugly. Anyway I think we are a little behind in our thinking. Apart from teams coached by Alladyce and the  Stoke team most English teams have moved on in the last decade.

I have English friends who say that parts of NZ remind them of England in the 1980's. Maybe we are trapped in a bit of a timewarp with our football as well. The sort of football Ricki played in the 1980's with Wolves is hardly indicative of what goes on there now at the top level.

Wow.

In one breath you're pontificating about "the worst kind of cultural stereotyping" and in the next you're railing against "the English model of coaching". Wtf?

And what's any of this got to do with Chris Greenacre's abilities as a coach?

Go on, mention the fact that he's English. I dare ya.

I don't want to make this about coaching but that was not the point of my post. It was put forward by someone that picking Greenie, an unproven coach, for the grooming school would be a slap in the face for Kiwi coaches that have worked hard for years at being better coaches. My point was that the guy that's worked his ass off for years may still not be good enough simply because NZ does not have a football culture and we don't 'get' football as easily as say, the English. Besides, it's a pro football club, not an equal opportunity charity foundation. They can feel aggrieved if Greenacre gets an NZ age group team (which 'generally' picks the best coaches in the NZ system) but not if he gets the Phoenix youth. The Phoenix are not obligated to reward coaches for application in their craft - simply pick the best person they see fit for the job. This is about making amateur youth in to pro men. Say, where is one of the most promonent exponents of youth/apprentice schemes in the world today operating at pro football clubs.... could it be in England? I wonder...

hmmm: milkshakes, grooming, amateur youth, pro men.

It's a funny old game football, innit?

TX - I can almost see you frothing behind your keyboard in faux outrage - tone it down a notch before you pop.  

Jeff vadar - best man for the job sure, but let's get past the worship of anyone who has participated in the Enlgish system.  Most countries have moved past importing British football traditions on the basis that there has been little success in that system and the world has moved on - it's time that we did too.

This is no judgement on Chris Greenacre as a coach, but if we're relying solely on his experiences in the British lower leagues as his qualification for the job that worries me.

The most succesful exponents of youth football is definitely not England - try Germany, Portugal, Belgium, France, Brazil - British Youth development is in such crisis that the entire system is being overhauled.

Spain?

Faux outrage?

FAUX outrage??

Why you little...

In that case, let me relieve you of your worries.

I can virtually guarantee you that the Phoenix will not do this, as that would require them to ignore the fact that he has played for them for the last 3 years, that he has just returned from doing his UEFA 'A' License, and most importantly... that they know just about everything about him that they could possibly wish to know in respect of how well qualified he is to do the job.

That's if he gets either job, of course.

Chill out TX...

I don't have a problem with Greenacre being English.....I would still oppose his selection if he was Australian or Mongolian...where he's from is irrelevant. I just think that we could have got better value out of someone with more coaching experiance. We will probably just have to disagree on this.

Somehow this discussion has overlapped with a critique of the English coaching system....which should be a completely different discussion to the Greenacre coaching job.

Apparently Stephen Carmichael made the top 100 in the Nike: The Chance competition.

Gets to go to Barcelona now.

Interesting to see how he goes.

(Wasn't sure where else to put this, but he was a possibility to make the ressies I thought)

From the Pre-season thread:

I wonder if the 2 Indian kids are replacements for the 2 players that will get youth contracts? I would like us to talk with the OFC about bring talented players over from the islands. If they came over at a younger age, they could get classed as Kiwis in the A-League after a few years.

This is a fantastic point. If they do come to the country at 14 or 15 then by 20 they wont be classed as foreigners

Eh. 99% of them would continue playing for their respective nations I guarantee it.

Yeah thats not the point we were making buddy

For some reason i thought i was still in the AWs section

"Later, we will branch out, and we aim to have three academies around the country - in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.  We will be appointing an academy coach over the next few weeks." 

http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/fox-sports-simon-hill-speaks-to-wellington-phoenix-coach-ricki-herbert-about-new-a-league-season/story-e6frfmq9-1226487486797#ixzz28EH57Gwq

 Thumbs up emoticon

pretty interesting. I wonder if that will be for younger groups? like12-18?

Then the best can be shifted to welly when they are good enough. Start really making that pathway obvious

 Think i heard the plan was 14-16 yo.

I heard that the Nix would announce the appointment of an academy coach.  Neil Emblem looks to be a name bandied about.  Anyone heard anything else?

 I read something similar, also read about the possibility of expanding the academy outside of Wellington and into other centers also.

Yup, Team Wellington up 2-0

Blew.2 ( @m0w0g ) is feeding me details from the hit out.

Final score 2 - 2 Lindsay? and Lia got goals.
Nix starting line up

                  Moss,

Downey, Solomons, Lindsay, Rowe

     Doyle, Biss, Lia, Boyd

         Watson Clarke

Gulley got 20 minutes in 2nd half.

Teedubs included Basalaj, McGeorge, Wiremu, Andreas (new Danish CB) Jimmy Cory and I'm sure Tobias as well (though thought he wasn't TeeDub squad this year?)