Huawei Wellington United Phoenix Academy Football School of Excellence - WeeNix

Phoenix A squad named for match against Canterbury United.
Wednesday 12th Feb. 7.30pm kick off at ASB Park.
http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/wellingtonphoenix/news-display/phoenix-a-game-schedule---team-list-for-12-feb/83110

# FNAME SNAME
30 Lewis Italiano
2 Tamupiwa Dimairo
6 Reece Caira
5 Luke Adams
3 Joshua Brindell-South
4 Alex Rufer
1 Andrew Blake
9 Clayton Lewis
10 Michael Boxall
7 Roy Krishna
11 Jason Hicks
12 Hamish Watson
14 Matthew Ridenton
RGK Lewis Gordon

Possible starting XI:
                  Italiano
JBS   Boxall   Adams   Caira
        Ridenton    Hicks
                   Rufer
 Krishna    Watson    ?????

That actually looks like a reasonable XI.

Will be interesting to see if Boxall plays at Centre Back or on the flank considering that is where he'll be playing for the 1st team.

Half time, whats the score??

1-1

2-1 Canty fulltime

Sack Greenie!

Canterbury 2-1 Phoenix FT.

Miserable night in Christchurch. Rained all through the match.

1st Half line up.

                 Italiano

Dimairo Adams Shermy Caira

                  Boxall

          Ridenton Rufer

 Watson   Hicks    Krishna

2nd half

             Italiano

Boxall Adams Shermy Caira

               Rufer

        Dimairo Blake

Watson Lewis Krishna

-13th min. Hicks great ball through to Krishna, bet his player and finished nicely.

-14th min. Canty long ball. Italiano and Shermy both went for it. Cocked it up. Open goal finish for White.

-55th min. Canty long ball down right side. Boxall too far up. Crossed in to Kamo, good finish.

1st half - Hicks and Rufer a real class above. Dimairo was impressive at RB. Very solid. Nix dominated possession about 70/30.

2nd half - Rufer the stand out again. Messy half. Possession 50/50. Long balls galore. Italiano looked very wobbly.

EDIT: Thought I should add that Boxall looked very solid in the Defensive midfield role. Stopped a lot of play and organised well before reverting back to RB in the 2nd half.

Canty long ball? Saw plenty of that on Sunday

Rufer and Ridenton in the midfield. I'm sure that won't be the last time we see that pairing over the next few years.

         Boxall                            Brindell-South

      Rufer               Riera               Ridenton

                   Boyd                Brockie

=  "BB  .... RRR .... BB   .... RBB... " etc etc.

Chant them out of their own song next time,  why not?

I read through this whole thread - Fkn did my head in. Anyhow -

1) Professional football must have a place within NZF and its Competitions.

2) Any club/Franchise wanting professional football must (and i say) must look to Australia's A-League however they should not be pushed out NZ for Growth youth/league system.

3) Although the NYL is covered by the FFA and "If" a Nixs team were to play(And be based) in Australia the cost would be way to much and un-viable for Welnix. I say this due to Brisbane Roar & Perth Glory's owner's wanting to put there NYL into the state comp or removing there W-League side (Due to cost blow outs). It makes sense to have any NZ based professional football clubs reserve and youth team playing in the NZFC (ASB) for this point.

4) The whole point of this thread is why does a NZ pro football club have to be treated as an out cast in its own back yard. And what does it say for future investors/investments of/for pro football in NZ?.

You will find a lot of your answers to your question hidden in the word "Jealousy".

Radio nz reporting that nzf are investigating the possibility of nix ressies being in ASBP

bout freakin time

Great news!

Will this be in place of the wanderers or a new team? Would be good to extend the season slightly.

Surely the Wanderers will stay in there - the whole point is to get them playing together before the U20 WC. I doubt they'd pull them out the season before it.

Although, we are talking about NZF....

But it's amateur league! You can't have professionally contracted players playing in an amateur league! Surely (not)?

Ah... so they come off-contract. Then go back on again. While others come off to take their place....

Who was it?

Perhaps the Nix board have worked with Fifa to get an exception regarding professional players playing in an amatuer league?

I can't imagine there are too many teams in the world in a similar position as us.

Blatter looking for votes in case his position is challenged : )

Lets get the Womens and under 17s { both sexes } into the ASBP ....make it a real showstopper !

Some devil's advocate questions from me around the desire to "develop players"...

I don't get the Phoenix saying that having a reserve team in the ASBP is a must for the club to become successful.  I just don't buy that:

Is it meaningful games that Phoenix young players are lacking, or specialist youth coaching?

Wwhy do the Phoenix even need to develop young players themselves?  We have 8 franchises and numerous private academies plus national teams and fed talent development all focussed on producing young players for pro football.  And only one professional team - can't the Phoenix just cherry pick the best talent developed elsewhere, why do they actually have to develop their own young players?

Are the Phoenix going to be better at developing players than any other ASBP franchise?  No evidence so far

Were the Phoenix hamstrung this year by reserve players not having played NZFC games, or their reserve players just being shit?

They were hampered because nothing beats match fitness and their reserve players don't get to play week in week out like other teams. So when asked to step up they hadn't been playing. You can train all you want but it won't replace playing games

My question is would the ASBP give them the week in / week out games they need to maintain match fitness? Isn't their schedule much shorter, or spread out with less matches?

Although Newcastle Jets, Brisbane Roar and Perth Glory have all entered their youth teams in their respective NPL comps currently playing.

I'm not sure if that means they won't play in the next NYL but I'm sure they will, because otherwise they'd then be facing the same problem as us - not having fringe players match ready during the A League season (and the Brisbane Roar press release specifically referred to giving players an "opportunity to play football and develop their skills all year around").

That means that youth players at those clubs could be playing 40-odd games a year, although I'm sure there will be a fair amount of rotation and bringing players in and out going on.

Still, when you look at that we would be absolutely mad not to give our youth and fringe players the opportunity to play at least 14 competitive games together per season.

Who would coach the reserves? Greenie, or would we need  to find someone else?