New Zealand Men's U-20s

the money we would have got from the confederations cup would be useful...............................................................

From Wednesday NZ Herald: College Sport...

"Football is different here. It is more aggressive and there is more contact whereas in Italy it was more about technique and passing. In Italy I was required to take two touches and then give the ball away. For the first month here it was hard to change but {Sacred Heart coach} Danny Hay has been good in helping me I'm better on the ball now."

Niko Kirwan, schoolboy son of Sir John, born in NZ but spent eleven years in Italy; with sights set on the next NZ Under-20 team.

PS I sat up and watched the game. Daft tackle by Payne to give away the freekick. Dispiriting lack of possession as usual. Dispiriting lack of forward momentum as usual. Great display of harry and chase as usual. Anyone recall if Basalaj ever found an outfielder with his clearances?

On TV1 the sight of Maria Sharapova doing the splits then being worked on by her trainer before being shafted was almost a welcome distraction.

Doesn't have to be Berger himself, a number of kiwis have worked in the Aus system under Berger or even an Aussie..???

I understand Shaun Douglas is highly thought of in FFA. he will have experienced the systems Berger has put in place and I would imagine come a lot cheaper than the man himself.

NZF need some better leadership, they need a technical director who will provide the age group teams with a philosophy and some direction. Ricki clearly doesn't do it and I wouldn't advocate that anyway as the All Whites play the worse brand of football of any of our teams.

Stop wasting money from World Cups on private planes and trial runs of long flights, invest in a decent technical director and improve the program's for our younger international players. Give us a vision and philosophy in line with modern world football, not long ball hopeful rubbish! You don't need to look too far from home to see possession based football being successful, Auckland City anyone..? 

Rant over..

When I was a Wellington age group rep we had just such a person coaching us, Lou Brocic, a Yugoslav. Seemed as old as the hills but he sure knew his stuff. Australia is full of European ex-pros still in love with the game. They just need to be enticed over here

If Paston had not made that save, we would have had no cash from WC2010. I think it is extremely unlikey ASB would have jumped on board with their $10m over 4 years too. With both of those onbaord, we are still running at a loss and people can't understand the U20s in the Premiership or 'we should just jump in with Asia'. We can't afford what we have at the bloody moment!

So had Paston not saved that penalty, we would have no teams going anywhere. Was it the 2007 team that did not go to the U20s in Vanuatu because they could not afford it (or something like that) People do not seem to grasp that without that save and ASB, we would probably be losing $3.3m a year in the current environment.

Considering Milicich has a fulltime job, I'm note sure our age group roles are attractive to those who currently have a full time football role.

My thoughts:

I though Basalaj should have done a lot better with the second goal, he dived after the ball when it had already passed him by, had he not thrown himself like a pontless rag doll he would have grabbed the rebound.

Higgins was awful, bar a couple crosses his passing was aimless and he often coughed it up. Also his touch and ability with the ball at feet was very poor, How many times did he have space to move into only to trip up over himself??

Roux had a much better game and got up and down well. Thought his passing was better today.

Arms and Adams both look very poor. They don't command the air or set pieces at all and don't offer anything when we have the ball. Numerous occassions they could have taken te ball forward to commit an opposition player and free space for a team mate, instead it was hoof after hoof.

Fenton did ok in tight spaces but doesn't seem to make great decisions all the time.

Thomas had one or two nice touches otherwise was invisible.

Gulley, worked hard in defence but was never an option when we had the ball - why not?

Payne, works hard and tracks well, but like Gulley seemed to disappear.

Howieson looks class and played well in the centre. Seems to have time on the ball and can find his man, only one who really looks like he deserves to be there.

Boyd is the NZ Greenace, works all day, but gets nothing to work with. Too isolated.

Higham - crap touch and passing for his 10 mins.

Watson, looked ok again, did a couple one touch passes that were nice and tried to lose his amrker and get into space.

Milicich please answer two questions for me:

1. Why did we for the entire 1st half simply defend in our half and let the opposition simply pass it amongst the back four especially after conceeding so early in the game. We simply let them have it and not have to work to keep it.

2. Do you honestly think we will trouble teams with a lone striker in Boyd playing long balls from the back to him???

Had high hopes for the team, but a lack of preperation and tactical nous from the coach I believe has cost us.

At the moment I would just be happy if NZ made the highlights real.

You age group sides are only as good as/or reflect on our current nation football league.

Highlights starting on TV 1 now.

Looks like some Phoenix supporters in the Uruguay fans.

LOL is that what you think?. I have to say they can string 2 passes together and play good football. But you can have that one for a disagreement, However Spain/Croatia/Netherlands/Germany/France/Australia/Japan/Korea/Uzbekistan etc etc all show it works.

So if that's a fact, You tell me is FIFA liaing about that statement?. Or some are just so in-denial  that cant except the fact there national league is stink.

Pete

Are the smaller teams getting that? If other teams relative to where we would be in AFC are getting that then that's fine. I suspect they are not and probably neither would we. The A League is also a league that gets coverage and played in stadiums... It has marketing and production. Does the ASBP have that? Hard to get 35m when we play at shit holes with 3 men and a dog watching, you may or may not have 1 camera and the football quality is questionable at best, fucking awful at worst.

That aside, the only thing we actually have that is worth anything is AW games. What are they likely to command? 300-400k a game? Hardly enough to support youth programmes in AFC considering how often the AWs play which is not often.

One of your predecessors? predecedents?

Maybe showing my age but I have travelled through a country called Yuogslavia, lovely place but the state shadow that followed me for the two weeks was slightly unnerving.

There once was a country called that (for a fair brief moment in time in history), but there never was any Yugoslav people.

Well, not much improvement on NZ football standard shown here compared to previous tournaments. Let's just hope one or two of the players are able to use this experience to get signed by a pro club or go to the next level. 

There's an opportunity to get something out of the last game - it's a cobbled together Croatian side, already qualified for the next stage and may not be highly motivated for this game. Would be cool to at least match the total number of points Australia's picked up in this tournament.

The name of the country roughly meant South Slavs. if im wrong by all means educate me...

Awesome news about Roux. Hopefully he can beat out Hayden Morton (who didnt make the final squad for the Aus U20s in Turkey) to the RB spot. Didn't have best game against Uzbek but did however look good against Uruguay. 

Yugoslavia/Yugoslav is a meaningless compound word - strictly speaking it means nothing in any of the Southern Slavic languages (although it was envisaged to allude to Southern Slavs). But that's not to mention that not all Southern Slavs lived in that country, while quite a few non-Slavs did, and that none of them used that term to describe their belonging to a specific ethno-linguistic sub-group, which is hardly a common identifier for most peoples around the world at any rate.

That sounds rather definitive. I take it you have a background from there El G? If so, I'd probably call it game set match

He's Croatian, so yep.

Ah. I googled El Grapadura and it came back with a Mexican wrestler from some kids cartoon. My assumption was Hispanic of some sort.