Come on guys I swear i would take my happy pills for a road trip.
2020 All Whites International Fixtures
I don't want to be negetive but for the first time in his life Royz should be negetive - this game is never going to happen
When next are the All Whites playing a game?
I doubt that there is a single person in the world who knows the answer to that question right now.
Interesting news snippet in this AV article.
Referring to Eden Park
"All Whites coach Danny Hay has expressed interest in playing the home leg of the intercontinental qualifying playoff for the 2022 men’s World Cup there, should his team make it that far, in an effort to build it up as a chance for the current team to make their own history.
NZ Football chief executive Andrew Pragnell was at Eden Park on Friday and said plans for that potential fixture, now scheduled for June 2022, were yet to be determined, with Sky Stadium in Wellington, the host for the last three such matches, the other contender."
Thought they may well change the date from March to June 2022. Good news.
This is a big boost to the AW's chances (yes providing they finish top dog in OFC). Means that providing club football life has returned somewhat to normal post Covid, all the European club seasons should be well over come June. Means that likes of Wood, Smith, Singh, Thomas, Bell, Cacace, Woud etc won't still have club commitments, and won't have to rush from a weekend club game to the airport, then fly out to NZ immediately post after.
For once the AWs should be able to go into these two huge games with a good 2-3 week buildup camp, and a proper warm up game prior. Getting the MLS guys for the same length of time maybe problematic. Tricky also if the A League is hell bent on becoming a winter league, with June-July as the business end.
But still should be so much better than playing these games shoehorned into a November or March FIFA window. Come 2022 the key AWs players will mostly be based in Europe, you would think.
Plus whoever is the intercontinental playoff opponent, may not enjoy a June winter night in the capital or Auckland, as opposed to balmy Wellington in Nov.
Nothing overly interesting or revoluntionary but just a comment that caught the eye.
Barbarouses was absent when the All Whites played the Republic of Ireland and Lithuania last November, staying at home with his wife to help her look after their two-month-old daughter and to play for Sydney, who were in action at the same time.
But after seeing how new coach Danny Hay set the team up for those matches, he is looking forward to being involved down the line and adding to his 47 caps and – he hopes – his four international goals.
“I've been in pretty regular contact with Danny. They send through a lot of videos, and we have caught up a few times as a team with Zoom calls,” Barbarouses said.
“From everything that I've seen and heard, I love what Danny's trying to do with the team.
“We've got a very exciting young team, I think, obviously sprinkled with a few of us more experienced boys, and it's looking really bright, what we can achieve.”
Woah, we might have another couple of games to go with the Belgium one if we can get covid clearances. Hearing that games against England (in England) and/or the USA(in the USA) are in the pipeline. Not sure which window they will sit in but huge if we can get them across the line.
Woah, we might have another couple of games to go with the Belgium one if we can get covid clearances. Hearing that games against England (in England) and/or the USA(in the USA) are in the pipeline. Not sure which window they will sit in but huge if we can get them across the line.
Going like Australia and targeting the big fish for friendlies.
England impossible to play in October window as they already have 3 games.
However in November window (which has another 3 playing dates) they only have two games. So I guess is possible.
https://us.soccerway.com/teams/england/england/774/
Sounds like Team USA are definitely looking for friendlies. So that rumour probably has real legs. They don't have any competitive games scheduled until March next year. Sounds like they are targeting friendlies in the USA for October window (MLS players), and Europe in November window (guys in Europe). They would easily be able to get a squad together of solely Euro guys.
Complicating factor is USA-EU travel bans, I think both ways??
Hay could probably assemble an AWs squad in the US, made up of MLS/USL players (must be about 12 of them) plus A League guys. But then the A League guys return to NZ/Oz and face the usual 2 weeks quarantine/self isolation. So I guess a Euro AWs verus a Euro USA at a neutral venue in October or November is the most likely scenario.
#AllWhites eyeing blockbuster finish to 2020 with England friendly in their sights https://t.co/hd1Ilc7ucn
— Andrew Voerman (@andrewvoerman) September 2, 2020
#AllWhites eyeing blockbuster finish to 2020 with England friendly in their sights https://t.co/hd1Ilc7ucn
— Andrew Voerman (@andrewvoerman) September 2, 2020
"Fifa has stopped non-European nations from playing during the September international window, which began on Monday, and could yet put the same restrictions in place in October and November."
Why?
And yeah we are due a Mexico game! But shark if these 4 friendlies (all in Europe) happened that would be O for Oarsome.
Hay recently signalled to Newshub that he would look to remain in Europe between the two windows, rather than returning to New Zealand where he would have to spend two weeks in managed isolation.
It is possible players from the A-League could follow suit, now they are in their long off-season, though that would require them to spend up to seven weeks away from family and friends.
Of course playing a Euro based Team USA side, means a Tyler Boyd catchup!
All these games look awesome! The game I'm really excited for is against England.
Hay recently signalled to Newshub that he would look to remain in Europe between the two windows, rather than returning to New Zealand where he would have to spend two weeks in managed isolation.
It is possible players from the A-League could follow suit, now they are in their long off-season, though that would require them to spend up to seven weeks away from family and friends.
Of course playing a Euro based Team USA side, means a Tyler Boyd catchup!
It’s great to see the All Whites finally get some game time. But I don’t see the point of playing such highly rated strong teams like England, Belgium and Mexico. The gulf in quality is just too high. We couldn’t beat Ireland or Lithuania but at least we kept possession and managed to create chances and score. Against world top 20 sides we won’t see the ball and all we will learn is to park the bus. Plus we will be far from full strength. I don’t want to appear negative but we could take a thrashing from top sides like England. It would be embarrassing and do nothing for the image of NZ football. There are plenty of second and third level in Europe who would give us a decent, even match.
Agree with you to a point.
A Lithuania type game would appear useful, for giving young players like Wilkins, Stamenic, Garbett etc a full 90 min run out. If it does end up being Belgium, Mexico, England & USA - those younger guys may just get cameo sub appearances.
Still IF these games happen Belgium and Inglerland are likely to field 2nd string sides. They already both have 6 competitive UEFA Nations League games over the Sept-Oct-Nov windows. Their first string sides don't need another game, but Martinez and Southgate would likely want to give their back up players a runaround. Still even Belgium/England 'B/C' will be formidable opponents. England will likely be all EPL players whoever they play.
Maybe there is just a lack of available Euro sides, who don't already have all their game slots filled over the Oct-Nov windows. Mexico and the US (like NZ limited to Euro based players), AWs on face of it should be more competitive against.
These games IF they happen are all about building towards the June 2022 intercontinental playoffs. That date will come around quick. Esp when all the AWs games in 2021 are likely to be OFC qualifiers. There is no Confeds Cup next year. So if NZ progresses out OFC, suddenly you come to start of 2022, with only the March 2022 window before you are into those 2 huge games in June 2022.
You also have younger players like Bell, Singh, Just, McCowatt, Cacace coming into the top XI now, who are still virtual strangers to older heads like Smith, Wood and Thomas. These guys all badly need to play games together against quality opposition. It's just a pity looks unlikely some of those MLS CBs (Boxall, Reid, Tuiloma) can travel to the EU.
In the big picture no one's going too really care too much about a 5-1 drubbing from the Three Lions, if it helps in some way prepare the AWs to beat Iran over 2 legs and get to Qatar.
5 - 1 loss to England, yes please. Any result like that against them or Belgium would be a plus.
I do, however, want to see us be at least competitive with USA and Mexico. We are growing as a nation footballing wise and I would like us to become a good middle of the road nation who can create a little noise.
5 - 1 loss to England, yes please. Any result like that against them or Belgium would be a plus.
I do, however, want to see us be at least competitive with USA and Mexico. We are growing as a nation footballing wise and I would like us to become a good middle of the road nation who can create a little noise.
I hate this kind of thing man. We can easily give all of them a game, this is the best the national team's been in the past 30 years. Fire up
crazy, we complain about not having games and when one once in a life time potentially comes against England, people complain as well
It’s great to see the All Whites finally get some game time. But I don’t see the point of playing such highly rated strong teams like England, Belgium and Mexico. The gulf in quality is just too high. We couldn’t beat Ireland or Lithuania but at least we kept possession and managed to create chances and score. Against world top 20 sides we won’t see the ball and all we will learn is to park the bus. Plus we will be far from full strength. I don’t want to appear negative but we could take a thrashing from top sides like England. It would be embarrassing and do nothing for the image of NZ football. There are plenty of second and third level in Europe who would give us a decent, even match.
In 2003 Australia, who were ranked 50th at the time played, played England, who were ranked 8th, at Upton Park and won 3-1............
where are we ranked current 120ish?
122 in the latest available rankings.
Cacace and Singh are gonna win us the world cup so we'll be number one soon enough
any ranking outside top 40 is pretty meaningless, we get shafted due to a lack of regular games vs hihger ranked teams.
Possible future AWs opponents, 10 man Ingerland grab a late 1-0 win in Reykjavík.
Sterling with a 91st minute penalty. Kyle Walker sent off at 70 mins (2 yellows).
Birkir Bjarnason misses a 93rd min pen for Iceland.
Interesting debate. Is the Iceland team man for man a better side, than a current full strength AWs?
Or are they just better (their FIFA ranking of 36 would say they obviously are), because the core group of their team have probably played 50 odd quality games together (as a wild guess), and they just play more games?
Plus they have this high quality ingrained national coaching system, that's been held up as a world benchmark.
From what I've seen of Iceland in the last 3-4 years (and I've watched quite a few of their games) I'd say they're easily better than us. They are also used to perform on the world stage now whilst we haven't been to a WC for 10 years
Possible future AWs opponents, 10 man Ingerland grab a late 1-0 win in Reykjavík.
Sterling with a 91st minute penalty. Kyle Walker sent off at 70 mins (2 yellows).
Birkir Bjarnason misses a 93rd min pen for Iceland.
Interesting debate. Is the Iceland team man for man a better side, than a current full strength AWs?
Or are they just better (their FIFA ranking of 36 would say they obviously are), because the core group of their team have probably played 50 odd quality games together (as a wild guess), and they just play more games?
Plus they have this high quality ingrained national coaching system, that's been held up as a world benchmark.
Clearly Iceland have the playing depth that we are some way from achieving. The side that played England this morning was very much Iceland B which just reinforces the point.
The more interesting question is who's the best player across the two teams - surely the choice comes down to either Wood or Sigurdsson.
No idea if it was Iceland 'B', but given the clubs that the starting eleven (against England) play for, is not a super impressive list, I'm sure you are right.
Iceland clubs x2, Russia - CSKA Moscow, Greece - PAOK, Denmark - Brondby, Serie A - Brescia, Bundesliga 2 - Darmstadt, Sweden - Malmo, Serie A - Bologna, Championship - Millwall and Eredivisie - AZ.
These sort of things are always fraught with agrument, but that's the sort of player club list that a full strength AWs would not be far off. Depending how you view MLS etc.
So this Iceland B side, almost managed a 1-1 draw (missed a pen late) against England. Yeah a bunch of English players out of season (but so would be most of the Iceland guys), played in Reykjavík, and a game probably without any atmosphere/edge in front of no-one - so hard to get up for.
But yeah will a 'moneyball/sum of it's parts' side like Iceland, always do better than an AWs side that rarely plays, no matter what calibre of player NZ has. Just because they have an excellent youth coaching system that has all the kids exposed to high level coaching at a young age, plus they just play together more often, and nearly always against top Euro opposition.
OK, let's see. So the following players didn't play overnight:
Sigurdsson (Everton)
Gudmondsson (Burnley)
Gunnarsson (now in Qatar, but 300+ appearances in the Championship and Premier League for Coventry and Cardiff City)
Finboggasson (Augsburg in the Bundesliga)
This is not to mention a bunch of other guys playing with other respectable clubs in decent leagues including Copenhagen, AIK, PAOK, and so on. So when you're comparing the clubs that the Icelandic players from last night played for, compare them with the clubs that the AWs who played against Lithuania play for. That's the relevant comparison.
OK, let's see. So the following players didn't play overnight:
Sigurdsson (Everton)
Gudmondsson (Burnley)
Gunnarsson (now in Qatar, but 300+ appearances in the Championship and Premier League for Coventry and Cardiff City)
Finboggasson (Augsburg in the Bundesliga)
This is not to mention a bunch of other guys playing with other respectable clubs in decent leagues including Copenhagen, AIK, PAOK, and so on. So when you're comparing the clubs that the Icelandic players from last night played for, compare them with the clubs that the AWs who played against Lithuania play for. That's the relevant comparison.
what a name! my new favourite player!!!
When will we hear if the Belgium game is on/off. When does the call have to be made?
When will we hear if the Belgium game is on/off. When does the call have to be made?
Could be left until nearly end of this month. Hay has talked about being away for 7 weeks, to take in the October and possibly November FIFA windows (ends about 20th November).
So seems he plans to leave NZ late September, and obviously a decision would need to be made before he, and the other NZ based coaching staff flew out.
The cancellation of the Bahrain & Oman games was a pretty late decision from memory.
OK, let's see. So the following players didn't play overnight:
Sigurdsson (Everton)
Gudmondsson (Burnley)
Gunnarsson (now in Qatar, but 300+ appearances in the Championship and Premier League for Coventry and Cardiff City)
Finboggasson (Augsburg in the Bundesliga)
This is not to mention a bunch of other guys playing with other respectable clubs in decent leagues including Copenhagen, AIK, PAOK, and so on. So when you're comparing the clubs that the Icelandic players from last night played for, compare them with the clubs that the AWs who played against Lithuania play for. That's the relevant comparison.
Yeah that's not a bad list from a country with popn of greater Wellington thereabouts. But I still see them as a bit of a 'Moneyball' side. A team that is better than the sum of it's parts. Coached by a dentist from memory. But a bunch of guys who know each other well, coming through their acclaimed high quality coaching programme, and who have spent a lot of time together. Maybe I'm being simplistic.
But is real potential now for the same to happen over time with the AWs to an extent. You have a group of young guys now being signed by European clubs, almost entirely coming from 2 academy programs (Weenix & Ole). Some of those Ole guys (they can start young there) would have spent hundreds of hours training & playing together. Same with Cacace and Singh. I imagine Bell was also with Singh at Weenix. Then they all came together for the U20s and quite a long lead in program to that tourney, with U19s, camps in NZ (it was mostly a NZ based side at the time) etc.
This has never really happened with the AWs before. You are not only getting better technical footballers, but helped by NZ being small, and the top upcoming talent now really concentrated in 2 academy programs, in the future a core group of the side will know each other's games very very well. When they get together in a white shirt, it hopefully won't take long for them to gel. That's a big bonus, when with travel distances, the AWs commonly only have 2-3 days and a few training sessions together before they play.
The challenge in the near future is going to be getting that young brigade, in tune with likes of Barba, Rojas, Wood, Thomas, Reid, M Boxall etc. At the moment they are still basically strangers to each other.
A lot depends on how the young brigade gets on from here. For all the big news coming out of Europe for those guys, let's also not forget that Sarpreet spent much of the season playing at a level similar to A-league (even though training with the first team will have done him a world of good), Bell's still finding his feet in Norway, and Libby hasn't even kicked a ball in anger yet. The lads playing in lower divisions in Scandinavia - well, they really need to be making their mark soon. They probably still meet the epithet of 'young and promising', but only just, they're mostly in the 20 or 21 age range (and just for context, this is the kind of age that Havertz, Jadon Sancho, Haaland, de Ligt, Kulusevski are at the moment).
Whether, and to what extent, what you outlined can happen will largely depend on how those guys' professional careers develop from here. Realistically 2022 World Cup will be the last hooray for the likes of Wood, Reid, Boxall, Kosta, etc, and given the uncertainties of life in a global pandemic, who knows how all that is going to play out.
Jesus I almost took from the above post, that El Grap finally admitted that Stefan was not playing in a pub league years ago
Careful El Grap, some where on this forum is your history
Jesus I almost took from the above post, that El Grap finally admitted that Stefan was not playing in a pub league years ago
Careful El Grap, some where on this forum is your history
Stefan was in Regionalliga back then, wasn't he?
at least 11 games in the third tier of German football according to wiki
In 8 years. Sarpreet played 21 in one season. Stefan spent the great majority of his 8 years in Germany in Regionalliga or lower (basically 4th and 5th tier).
Pub football, in other words.
When will we hear if the Belgium game is on/off. When does the call have to be made?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/nz-teams/12...
Eleven of the players who were involved as the All Whites lost to the Republic of Ireland and Lithuania last November currently call Europe home – goalkeeper Michael Woud; defenders Liberato Cacace, Nando Pijnaker, and Tommy Smith; midfielders Joe Bell, Sarpreet Singh, and Ryan Thomas; and forwards Elijah Just, Max Mata, Callum McCowatt, and Chris Wood – while a 12th, goalkeeper Stefan Marinovic, is currently there on holiday.
Those based in Europe who could be in line to join them include defenders Nikko Boxall, Niko Kirwan, and Dalton Wilkins; midfielders Owen Parker-Price and Marko Stamenic; and forwards Matt Conroy, Matt Garbett and Joel Stevens.
Lads, its only England.