2016 Friendly Discussion

It will be complicated getting several players released due to club commitments in late May (even early June in Tuiloma's case).

Worst affected will be Bill Tuiloma (Strasbourg's last game is June 4), Marco Rojas (Swiss league finishes May 25), Marinovic (Unterhaching's last game May 22) and Brockie and Boxall (South African season finishes May 21). Cutting it pretty fine for NZ's first game in the OFC Nations Cup on May 29. (See below for dates of last game of the season for all major All Whites players)

It will depend on negotiations between NZ Football and the clubs and to what extent NZ football want to enforce the strict letter of FIFA rules around the release of players for FIFA-sanctioned tournaments like the OFC Nations Cup.

Clubs only have to release players the Monday morning of the week before the tournament which starts on Saturday May 28 (so strictly speaking, clubs only have to release players five days before this tournament).

The relevant FIFA rules:

http://www.mishcon.com/news/briefings/internationa...

"For a final competition players must be released and start to travel to their national team no later than the Monday morning of the week preceding that of the start of the relevant final competition, and must be released by their association the morning of the day after their last match of the tournament."

http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/admin...

f) Final competitions
"In accordance with Article 36 Paragraphs 2b) and 5c), if a player is called up, he must be released to play in the final competition organised by FIFA or a confederation and held in a period fixed/set in the calendar. In this event, the period of release shall be 14 days."

The last English Championship fixtures are on May 8 (Wood, Smith, Cameron, Tzanev) three weeks ahead of the OFC Nations Cup.

Last National League (Southport) fixtures May 1  (Crocombe)

The last EPL fixtures are May 16 (Reid)

Last St Mirren fixture, Scottish Div. One is April 31 (Howieson)

Last Greek fixtures (PAS Giannina) April 16 (Tzimopoulos)

Last Dutch Eredivisie games are May 7 (Thomas)

The last Swiss fixtures are May 25 (Rojas)

The South African League finishes May 21 (Brockie, Boxall)

Last Unterhaching, Germany fixture is May 22 (Marinovic)

Scandinavian leagues start early April (Keat, Henderson) but those guys seem out of favour anyway.

If NZ football doesn't push to have them released early, some players will be available for only approx one week or less of All Whites May camp in bold:

Moss, Marinovic, Crocombe, Tzanev, Doyle, Reid, Boxall, Smith, Fenton,  Roux, Tzimopoulos, Thomas, McGlinchey, Tuiloma, Cameron, Howieson,  Payne, Wynn, Brotherton, Hudson-Wihongi, Rojas, Barbarouses, Lewis, Wood, Brockie, Smeltz,

Don't forget that Mexico shambles was all Fred de Jongs fault.. :-p

ideally the two week camp would have been in NZ with a game against a NZ 11 made up of the rest of the squad plus ASB Prem players or something. This would have at least given the public a glimpse of the team and some exposure for current and potential commercial sponsors. The reason they'll be going to Australia will be that Hudson won't want any distractions and he will want the team fully focussed. I don't think it will have as much to do with the heat but more about ensuring a professonal environment. I think this a direct effect of the Xmas holiday fiasco where players (incl professionals) came home and simply ignored Hudsons training plans. I have heard that their managers have complained about them returning out of shape. So unfortunately the Aussie trip is the result. 

I am genuinely concerned for NZF as their post 2010 commercial deals have rolled off now and they haven't renewed ASB which was about half of their sponsorship from all accounts (they have retained McD's and Nestle).  NZFs business model has just become more, not less, reliant on unpredictable tournament winnings. If we think it has been hard trying to get friendlies before the Mexico game it's going to be worse moving forward as we have less cash to spend and games are getting more expensive. 

It's a vicious cycle isn't it? No games equals no sponsorship equals no money equals no games. It seems ridiculous that the biggest sport in the country by participation numbers struggles for money.

Meanwhile SPARC throws millions at rowing, which is effectively a sport for a minority of rich kids, and is only popular to any degree because we had a few people who were good at it which meant Olympic medals which meant funding and a higher profile, which meant we won a few more medals. Funnily enough, from a global profile perspective getting more games for the AWs will do a lot more for "brand New Zealand" than a few extra medals at the Olympics every 4 years. Because let's face it, the underlying assumption behind SPARC funding elite sport is that winning medals at Olympics is good for the country as a whole.

Brilliant BP. Tyler Boyd/Portugal situation?

Yes, very poor Big Pete, next time include all of the players please :)

How many players pull up with "injury" after the final game of their season?...  Reid, Wood, Smith come to mind given where this tourney is at.

There is also the potential that Smith would be involved in play-off games to win promotion to the premiership, hopefully Wood too  ;-)

Bets on training camp venue....

Mine: 1) Cairns 2) Brizzie 3)Townsville 4) Rockhampton 5) Tweed Heads ...

If they are having it in May then one should rule out Brizzie and Tweed Heads as the temperature will not be hot enough.

Alice Springs in May would be lucky to get to 18. with a low of 10

Yeah, I forgot Boyd, who should be back in Hudson's squad you'd think.

Vitoria Guimaraes second team (he regularly plays for): last league match May 15 NZT (vs. Porto reserves)

Vitoria Guimaraes first team: last league match May 16 NZT

I don't think that they have play-offs in Portugal at the end of the season for the top and bottom sides.

Vitoria have already been knocked out of both the Portuguese Cup and the League Cup, so no extra games pending there.

It's been said in the media this weekend that the All Whites will probably want to arrive in PNG about five days before the tournament to acclimatize etc. so that would mean arriving about May 24.

Hence, not much time in the pre-tournament camp for several key players.

On the plus side at least we dont need to worry about the burden of getting some experience from a much higher ranked team.

From the front page:http://www.newshub.co.nz/sport/nz-football-rejecte...

FFS NZF.

Pretty good pridiction here from me from over a month ago.... could you imagine McCaw etc not playing in the rugby equivalents (egnoring his retirement here).

Why do we even have this thread? It should be called 2016 training camp discussion

If we get to the confederations cup then they shouldn't be aloud to play. If there is an SOS to Dura with the confederation cup being a carrot then we should follow through and give him the starts for those games. If Reid and Smith want to come put them on the bench and make them watch.

In order to derail this thread like most threads are derailed I hate the name Chinese Taipai as a bullshark compromise from the 70's, it's insane that the ROC has been an independent nation since 1949 yet no major country including NZ recognises it, yet if you ask the average person what Taiwan is they will say an East Asian country that specialises in high tech goods. They won't say a province of china, yet unless that person lives in Nauru they would be wrong.

And also ROC should give up any claims that it has on mainland China as that is delusional.

Not much time left in March but plenty enough for another NZFscrew up. Had to laugh yesterday when the Fun Police had a go at Patrick with the latest banner. Nice try guys and we know the truth hurts but certain NZFofficials just seem to be ignorant arseholes that will not step down regardless of how much shark they cause and embarrassment to the game. In my day we called it Lack of balls and these guys certainly lack any integrity to go with it.

In the March friendly vs. Russia the the All Whites were offered, Russia's second string side beat Lithuania 3-0 in Moscow.

No big deal we didn't take that game because Reid, Smith, Wood, Barbarouses, Smeltz, most Phoenix players etc. would probably not have been called up. Ryan Thomas was injured.

A mostly second string All Whites team would probably have been embarrassed even against Russia's second eleven.

Lithuania isn't a footballing powerhouse either though, and although they may be ranked above us I'd say we would be better. Like NZ Football is behind other sports in Lithuania (Basketball and Ice Hokey would be the top two imho), they have half the population of NZ, and a worse climate for football.

But Nerijus Astrauskas only ever got 2 games for them

Would be actually an interesting contest - and by interesting, I mean cover-your-eyes awful game of football. Lithuania don't have a lot of top quality players, but play a lot together, and are generally speaking pretty tough nut to crack, especially at home.

I reckon it'd be an unwatchable 0-0 draw (or a potential 1-0 to someone, either through a set piece or horrendous defensive mistake).

I don't know what their domestic competition is like in Lithuania but I've spent a fair bit of time in Latvia and their domestic competition is ASB Premiership level if that. BFC Daugavpills home ground would be about the same capacity as Newtown Park, and that is the top team in the second biggest city in the country. While a good chunk of the national team plays in Russia I'd say more than half actually play semi-pro football in Latvia itself. A quick google shows that Lithuania is similar, which is surprising considering they are both European Union countries so their players would have an easier job getting a look in in the bigger European leagues than ours. 

So our players should be playing at a higher standard than theirs considering we would be almost entirely profesional whereas they would be 50% semi pro.

But yes, harsh conditions, passionate fans. If it was played in Lithuania they would be very tough. But played here or at a neutral venue? I don't know, we should beat them comfortably.

Maybe their pro players suffer the same injury issues that ours do in international windows?

They have a few players plying their trade in middling (to less than middling) European leagues. They don't have anyone the calibre of Winston Reid - but arguably, neither do we...

But going beyond just the players, it's really the regularity of competition and team cohesion that would be against us. In their EURO qualifying, they got thumped by England, (4-0 and 3-0), and also had a 4-0 loss against Switzerland - and we're nowhere near the level of either of those teams. In other games, Lithuania were quite respectable (narrow 2-1 loss to Switzerland, draw with Slovenia). On the other side, we're lucky to play more than 3-4 games a year - and if in two of those we have the same players, it's pretty much a bonus. Don't think it'd be an easy game for us.

Obviously it's an academic discussion so no right or wrong answer - but I think we'd find it difficult to break them down, since they adopt a very defensive mindset given their pecking order in European football. On the flipside, I don't think they'd bother us at the back too much. I think the only thing for sure would be that any neutrals would certainly not be queuing up to go and watch that game.

It might be a close contest, even if played in NZ.

Lithuania beat Euro 2016 finalist Romania in Bucharest last month in a friendly and Romania were undefeated in qualifying for the Euros, conceding only two goals.

Lithuania has a Premier League / la Liga goalie in Arlauskas who has appeared for Watford this season when Gomes was injured and is currently on loan to Espanyol now Gomes is back and in good form.

From time-to-time, Lithuania throws up a player of world class such as current national team manager Jankauskas, a striker who won the Champions League under Mourinho at Porto in 2004 and retired from the national team in 2008.

Unfortunately, they don't have any players of his quality at present.

Unsure if this has been discussed but i have read that Iraq are playing a friendly in NZ before their Asia qualifiers with Australia in August.

Wikipedia has a game listed in NZ on the 22nd August. (wikipedia I know blah blah blah)

see here 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_national_footba...

If true I reckon a decent game against a decent opposition. first home game for two years since South Afirca in 2014?

It is amazing how many more games teams in Asia play in a year. If the All Whites played that many games a year, surely the team would be much better. 

If that's true then they are playing a sharkload of friendlies. Five between July and August, plus at least three Olympic matches for some of the squad. 

NZ Football must have said "Yeah. Nah." to the Iraq fixture.

It's been removed from Iraq's Wikipedia now:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_national_footba...

The only friendly they have listed now between World Cup qualifiers is away to Qatar in August.

I sure hope NZF does manage to arrange some friendlies though in the nine month break before our next World Cup qualifier in March 2017....

It's such along break after the OFC Nations Cup before the AW's have another competitive match in March 2017.

Obtaining friendlies in every FIFA window is going to be important.

No problems with the match schedule next year which is shaping as a busy year with potentially the 2017 Confederation Cup and there's the next round of World Cup qualifiers from March next year and the Oceania qualifying final in October 2017and the Inter-Continental Play-Off.

So, getting out of the OFC Nations Cup successfully, there is a lot to look forward to with potentially ten competitive matches for the All Whites next year (and no doubt friendlies on top of that):

- four Third Round home-and-away World Cup qualifiers March onwards

- Confederations Cup Finals Russia 18 June - 3 July NZT - minimum three matches

- OFC World Cup Qualifying Final October 2017 - one match

- Inter-Continental Play-Off for World Cup place - two legs November 2017

OFC Qualifying Final is home and away, I think?

And there's been some chat that OFC third round will start this November, despite what FFA says - would mean no clashes/logjams for the Confeds Cup team (us, hopefully) in June 2017

Helping our cause for friendlies will be the fact that Asian WCQ has moved on to the third round, leaving just 12 teams occupied rather than 40.

Looking for pairs of games in east Asia or east & West Asia is probably our best bet (given that it's impossible for any team to play in NZ and then anywhere else, bar Australia (and maybe Indonesia)

OFC Qualifying final is two legs, so potentially 11 competitive matches.

Should (hopefully) get in a decent friendly or two in Europe in the build up to the confed cup (if we're going), and hopefully a friendly in South America before the playoff (again, if we make it) so next year should be a good one. 

Desperately in need of something in the windows at the end of this year.

Both OFC and CONMEBOL WCQ run right up to the window before the IC playoff, so there will be no OFC - CONMEBOL friendlies.

Follow up game with US looking likely

http://www.newshub.co.nz/sport/sources-all-whites-set-to-face-united-states-2016081709#axzz4H8tbNtI3

Nice to see another nation(s) not comprehend FIFA regs for a change.

At least they applied for a waiver, and didn't just go ahead thinking it'll be fine.

US game confirmed now:

http://i.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/nz-teams/83292...

Good stuff; finally they do something right.

Do we know if the dates are US or NZ time? We have a game in Perth on 16 October, the logistics of getting players back in time for that won't be easy.

Oh, and yes. Well done NZF for organising the games.