Tony to get a contract?

I wish him the very best. Who would not want to play in the Premier League.
Ricki reckons he is the best left defender in the A league.
I don't think so, by a mile, but to play in the best division in the UK you need to be special- I don't think he is.

quote from HH

With regards to the development of NZ football, getting players into the EPL has some merit.
However I would like to remind everyone of the current fragile state of the game here. Much depends on the Phoenix being successful.....and that means them winning this season. We finished last in our first season but we got lots of slack from the public/media.

They won't be so forgiving if we don't do well this year. I suggest that more kiwi kids will take up the game if the Phoenix do well than would if the likes of Lockhead get to play in the EPL.(talk to any headmaster in Wellington, football is booming and they put much of this down to the Phoenix effect)

Personally I don't give a rats about players moving to the EPL....thats a long term goal. I want the Phoenix to be succesful. There is too much at stake!!  FFS some of our best attacking play last season was down the left flank with Lockhead at the heart of it. If this does'nt work this year it won't cheer me up knowing Lockhead is at Boro.

I know I am being selfish but I have lived in the football wilderness for too long in NZ....I want to follow a local winning team!!!!!

I'm a bit confused by the way this thread is going (not difficult to confuse me I know). 

How does this have anything to do with NZ international footall?  As a Phoenix supporter I'd be very upset if we let one of our best players go to further the development of the international team.

Or am I completely misreading the whole thing?

No, it's about furthering the development and the profile of the game in New Zealand.

Something that is in the Phoenix mission statement and a stated objective of the club I believe.

Surely the best way to raise the profile is by having a good showing in (if not winning) the A-league.  This move hardly increases our chances of doing that.

Why not have both?

Interesting to me that most of the criticism of Ricki over this business has been pretty subdued, along the lines of "I'm not knocking him but...". What it boils down to here is our own manager throwing one of our best players in the direction of a big-name club. And without Lochhead's knowledge until the trial was already arranged apparently. StopOut2008-08-01 00:08:53

Im glad the phoenix priority is to provide a stepping stone for our homegrown players to go on to bigger things,and to help develop NZ football and raise its profile

No, because whether we like it or not there is still a significant body of the NZ public who only see Football as the Premier league.  Apart from Wellingtonian's it's dedicated football people watching the Phoenix, but many of your average sport punters follow the Premier League and know the name Middlesbrough and will sit up and take note of another New Zealander there.

Some of them may even say 'he came from the Phoenix ? might be worth catching that'

I'm a Phoenix supporter and prioty for me is success for the Phoenix.  I didn't think I was buying in to NZ football's PR machine.  I'd prefer to keep our best players and maybe win a game or two, but maye that's just me.......

Fair enough. But surely one of the goals of the phoenix is to help NZF,whether or not you buy into that goal is up to you,but theyre doing their job in fulfilling this goal.

I think people are overestimating the effect that having a single player in the EPL will have on NZ football. If Wynton Rufer could barely get a mention in the NZ press when he was scoring goals week in week out for a top German club in the 80s I don't see how Tony Lochhead is going to grab too much attention. At least, not enough to make the average kiwi sports fan sit up and take notice.         

Take the news coverage of this... it's a different world now with media and things... and a major difference in the NZ Psyche between late eighties German league and the all singing, all dancing, media bombardment Premier League of 2008.

Hmmm, never underestimate how fickle the press is when it comes to soccer. The sport has made some big strides in recent times but even here in Oz it still plays second or even third fiddle to other codes. Newspapers and TV/radio aren't exactly falling over themselves to promote Oz players in foreign leagues, even the EPL. If Tony doesn't achieve the level of success which makes him 'newsworthy' I seriously doubt the average punter will hear much about him in NZ.

The press here are usually really good at covering players in the EPL...because we dont get many!

As i said above....why not have both?

That scenario would be completely fine by me if Lochhead had been scouted by M'boro, but he wasn't: we gave him away! "Hey, fellas, we've got this red hot wingback who'd be perfect for you. He's one of our best players but go on, take him!".

Deliberately putting him in the way of another club as an apparent strategy for the somewhat woolly goal of giving NZ's soccer profile a leg-up - to the detriment of your own club's title hopes - seems a little bizarre to me. I don't even believe Ricki was thinking such a thing when he made his decision, just that it's been interpreted that way. I reckon it was a much more personal thing; that he saw an opportunity to help a very good young footballer maybe achieve the dream of a lifetime.

Id say a bit of both.

strangely, i agree wholeheartedly with DLB

yes but that's because the average NZer thinks NZ football teams are crap - if the nix do well, ie. finish in the top 4, they can't really still think that, but if they finish last like last year, they are (somewhat) justified.

One player doing well is a lot different from a whole team doing well, and if we're talking about fickle NZ fans, then results matter the most - look at the warriors when they are doing well to when they are struggling, the crowd numbers change quite massively
Cosimo2008-08-01 08:19:55

I'm a little freaked out by that!

even if the nix win the whole thing, the majority of the (stupid) nz public will still think "oh well, it is only the A League - it is not like it is the premiership or anything..."

yeah but it's not like we're gonna have a team in the EPL - we have players in the EPL aready, and it's only really Nelson that's a regular starter - Lochead wouldn't be. If he got a contract, and came off the bench a few times, it would raise football's profile more than winning the A -league? no way.

and by that rationale, it'd great if Smeltz, Moss, Mulligan, Bertos, Sigmund, Costa etc got signed to EPL teams - the nix would definitely finish last, but at least NZ football would be healthy! except it wouldn't, cos we wouldn't have a decent team to support. We should just cut out the middle man, and start up the nix academy for getting NZ players EPL contracts.

If we had that many NZ players good enough to play in the EPL,then the all whites would definetly be good enough to qualify for the world cup...which would raise the profile of the sport here 1000x more than an A league win ever could

But that's a huge leap...as I indicated before, NZ pro football is in its infancy: the numbers getting quality contracts will be few and far between at this stage. If we ever get to the stage that 5/6 NZers are getting those sort of contracts, then I hope that would indicate a general across the board raising of the standard. EPL will always be a magnet, if players want to go they go.

Think Tegal and I are on the same lines!

On another point, in the raising of the profile, I also think the distinction needs to be made between raisingthe profile for wannabee pro footballers and Joe public. There may be different criteria at play.HarryHotspur2008-08-01 09:13:35

My best-case (and selfish) scenario is that Lochhead is not signed. The Phoenix get him back, reinstating the strong back line it's finally achieved, and retains the reputation of a team that won't hold back its players from moving on to greater things (although, personally, I'm indifferent to the EPL).

Nail -> Head.

Whitby boy2008-08-01 09:58:20

Yawn.

The conflict of interest is indeed apparent now.

I'm not so sure about that. Networks are based on utu/reciprocity - how do we know what Herbert can see as the potential benefits down the track of these fabulous connections he has made through the Pro license qualification? AWs perhaps, but I'm sure there will be possibilities for the Nix that he is aware of, that are not even in our scope of thinking (at this point).

I'm with you Fink on the best outcome of the 10 day trial.

F Mac - that would indeed be stupid to say that.HarryHotspur2008-08-01 10:24:53

It was blatantly apparent when he was appointed, but seeing as Tony P and the rest of the club are singing from the same songsheet (sorry Frankie) as Ricki that isn't what is happening here.

Like the fans of the Australian sides (in general) I consider it a matter of pride for this club to develop a player that is good enough to be thought of at this level.  While Adelaide don't like seeing Djite and Burns go to Turkey and Greece the majority of them take pride in what they achieve and accept that is the nature of the competition and that it is for 'the good of Australian football'.

It would be nice if we could see it the same way.

I will also point out something I mentioned earlier, without casting aspertions, among those laying in to this decision there seems to be a large percentage of people who would appear to have loyalties to English clubs and (dare I say it) are more supporters of English football than the New Zealand National team.  There is nothing wrong with that, but maybe it is a little hard for some of those people to see it from a for the New Zealand/Australian game point of view.

Incidentally, superb that we get to have this debate.

I've always been more club than country and I've stated that on here before.

But that really is an aside. The bigger issue is that Ricki has very mixed incentives in his current role(s).

I agree with that, but don't think that it's a simple country v. club situation, but more of a coloured understanding of the way footbal clubs operate based on the way the bigger English clubs do their business.

The Nix cannot operate in this way, firstly because of our rare position as the only professional football club in the country with the accepted responsibility to further the game in NZ, but also because of the club's position in the global footballing hierarchy. We will lose our best players to bigger clubs in better leagues for a wee while to come, and we have to accept that now. The challenge for the Phoenix is to be able to absorb the losses of best players and replace them with best promising talent available, mature them into players who can succeed at the higher level, and continue repeating that cycle. This is where we are very disadvantaged by not having a youth team, but ultimately this is the only way for the Phoenix to survive as a viable club in modern football.

As for all the talk of Ricky's conflict of interest and touting of Lochy - firstly, we all knew there was going to be conflict of interest from the very start. No news there really. As to him touting Lochy, there's nothing unusual there either. Just one example (and I have a few...) was Dinamo president Zdravko Mamic spending a week in England just before Christmas last year looking to sell Modric. The reality was that Modric was ready to move to a higher level, the club decided to make some money off it, and in the process enhance its reputation for nurturing and developing talent that makes it an attractive destination for best young Croatian players (and also South American, for whom Dinamo offers first team football in Europe at an early age and move to a bigger club relatively early, Pedro Morales being the latest acquistion). You just have to accept that that's what smaller clubs have to do to survive and remain competetive. And this kind of situation exists both hiher up and lower down the chain, unless you're talking of a very priviliged group of clubs who can afford to get all the talent thay can get without needing to offload any of its own. But this is a very elite group of probably not more than 7-8 clubs worldwide, and is by no means representative of what happens in 99.9% of clubs the world over.

i've fallen for the wrong argument - for me it's not even "what raises the profile the most", but the fact that i'd rather the nix had the best possible team, irrelevant of whether it's good for the game in NZ, cos i'm a nix supporter first. I don't want to pander to an indifferent NZ public, i want to support a good wellington-based football team - and that's why i'm even bothering to write in these forums. This is a phoenix fansite, and this is a phoenix thread - i don't see why i should be happy to see us lose one of our best players, greater good or not. This is a sports team, not a political party trying to electioneer.

Some of us even have loyalties to our English club well above our country

Parochial Poms United!