How do we produce better international quality players?

Who were the Iceland players that can play for NZ? I just scoured Transfermarkt, and Soccerway and I couldn't find any. 

Theres not it was a bullshark post

Actually no it wasn't. 

Not sure if they are still playing but there were 3/4 players with kiwi parents in the late 00s. Their fathers were fishermen who moved to Iceland in the 60s/70s.  Maybe some of the other youngsters coming through also have similar parentage.

TBH they may not have been the best players in the world but in a number of Football Manager games they were of decent enough pedigree to displace Sigmund, Fallon and the likes.

Re-read your first paragraph marto.

Marko, you are drawing a rather long bow

even though the population is small, it is still large enough to prevent the in breeding your post implies

I'm not hinting at what you've suggested but I've been there a few times with work and it's a very insular country compared with the UK, NZ, Aus etc. 

The players I'm aware of would be 23-27 today so perfect age to represent Iceland/NZ but again am unsure of their names now.

I believe that the All White Che Bunce played in Iceland. Maybe a few of his off spring?

Surprised that no-one's said it yet, but clearly #alignment.

I don't live in NZ so I would appreciate opinions from those that do....and it is possible that my post is a mile from reality...however

Do people think NZF is  getting the best out of our football playing ethnic minorities?

When you see the Asian support for Mangere UTD???? in the Chatham cup(4000 spectators I read) then why is there no ASB team in South Auckland.

Why are NZ age group national football teams so Anglo?

Is this because its too expensive for non Anglo kids to move up the ranks and only honkie kids with "soccer mums, driving Pajeros" can afford it.

Why(until recently) is every pro coach from the All Whites down through the age rep sides, through the Phoenix and ASB from a British background?.(exception Calcott, and the two U17??? kiwi coaches)

Does this monoculture inhibit our game?

When you consider the massive immigrant communities in NZ cities like Auckland, where Europeans are nearly a minority in the under 20 age cohort you kind of expect that there would be loads of them coming through into the national setup. OK polynesians tend to prefer rugby, league but there must be some more Tuiloma's out there.

It seems to me that NZF is failing to fully utilise all its assets in terms of players. Last time I was in NZ  I saw the Phoenix play at Eden park. i was stunned by the ethnic diversity of the croud. These people live in NZ and they don't do rugby. Football is their game. Surely we need to get these people in to managing, coaching and playing football.

I'm not trying to be anti British as these people have worked hard to keep the game here, alive for decades but surely its time to diversify and utilise all our assets. Maybe that way we could improve our playing stock. 

The local game needs refreshing.....we need new ideas, new ways of doing things, new styles of playing, new ways of coaching.. and new people involved

More on Icelandic football, for anyone interested. Of note: virtually all players have access to UEFA qualified coaches; ability to play year-round; national league is amateur; multi sport culture, so they seek-out late developers; good players can leave for Europe at 16, due to EU passport.

Football Times article, "The Icelandic roadmap to success"

Football in NZ is way bigger than rugby in USA. 

they have a 'roadmap'???? no wonder they are better than us

Actually I'm not aware whether or not they have a "roadmap", in the form of a Whole of Football Plan. What they do is focus on 3 things: 1) get as many people as they can playing football; 2) as often as they can (indoor and year round facilities); 3) under the guidance of UEFA qualified coaches. That's it in a nutshell. It's not rocket science, but there is a big government investment that recognises the true value of healthy lifestyles on its population. Then they have the ace card - Iceland won the lucky door prize for island nations' proximity to major football leagues - as EU citizens, any kid with a bit of talent pops over to Europe.

I agree. Having British background coaches is the biggest joke. Look at England all the problem English football has is related to their lack of good coaches. NZF have to look at Spain and Germany to produce good footballer in a proper system with good coaches.

I said that before, how many ex-all whites kids are playing for the All Whites? It not a genetic thing, it's just they got better training form a small age on. And if you give this training to 1000 other kids, it is pretty likely there are some who are better than them.

Iceland started their changes in about 2001. By 2005  they had put in place most of the building blocks. They made it compulsory for all coaches to have attended a couple of courses before becoming a coach. They worked out that the single most important factor to becoming a decent side was player quality and that technique and also skill levels of players had to improve. They worked out that to do that they needed better quality coaching, especially of the 5-12 year olds. So much of a players technique and skill is firmly imprinted by 12. It would be an exceptionally rare case for any player to take up the game at 12 and make it to the top level, things have moved on so much that its simply highly unlikely to happen.

They made it so that new coaches worked beside experienced coaches before taking teams on their own. That all the way down to 5 year olds. They have a very high ratio of qualified UEFA coaches per player.

I think the single biggest thing we could do to help us become better is that we start to assess coaches the same way we assess players, by observation and measurement of attributes.  Currently in clubs, schools, private academies and  at Federation level we give coaches jobs based on qualification, cv or word of mouth. 

To be open and honest i think the Federation rep setup is 100 times better now than it was just 10 years ago and the methods, drills and ideas the coaches are asked to provide are very good. However we dont select our coaches (and this is especially important at rep level)  with the same scrutiny that we select players.

Under the Federation system players are measured on various attributes each term and reports are provided on their progress etc.  At this point we dont do this with the coaches and the weakness here is that some of the coaches may not be of the required standard and in turn that means the reports they provide on players may not be as accurate as required. Also they may not be providing sessions at the required level. If we started to observe and measure our coaches then we can help them become better, employ the best and in turn our kids will get better.

From my knowledge i dont think there are very many, if any clubs, schools or private academies that provide reports each term on specific dedicated attributes the way the Federation system does. The problem however is that the coaches are not measured in a similar appropriate manner.

It is easy if you have been doing coaching courses long enough to know how to pass them. To get an edge we need to be evaluating coaches at regular intervals.  This needs to happen at clubs and schools, it currently doesnt or if it does it will be in very rare cases. Its entirely doable but needs to be recognised as a problem first and then pushed from the top. 

My personal view is that the most important age is the 5-12 age group and providing world class coaching to those ages will give us the greatest benefit long term. More highly skilled players coming in to the youth setups will mean that those competitions at that age group will be forced to improve.  I believe the most important coaches at clubs and schools are those taking the 5-12 year olds not the top team coach.  

The trouble is that for the average fan youth age players with respect to the future is the more interesting area to look at and discuss. 

Indian, not Asian.

Off the top of my head, I don't think there is a single Asian team in Auckland other than a couple playing Sunday league

Have you seen the size of Jono Hickey? Brendan McCullum? 

Edit. Sorry just seen this covered by someone else. As you were.

In Europe and North America most people refer to Indians as Asian. That may be where there is confusion here.

Indians are Asians by definition.

You Europeans are so loose with your identities.

Forget Iceland, St Vincent and the Grenadines are ranked above us at the moment and I thought they were a hipster electro-folk-metal band, not a country. What are they doing right that we aren't?

Playing more than 2 games a year ?

Going less than 2 years between wins?

That story about the 12 year old girl being called up to a senior side is an example of extremely bad coaching. An utterly appalling decision to ask the girl to play for the senior side on so many levels. It will stunt her development as a player at precisely the time when she needs to be playing among her own age group. 

Depends on what definition one is using.

The one that classifies India as part of South Asia I'd guess.

Plus its against our own rules isn't it?

Good point, how on earth are the associated federation allowing this?

Tall poppy does not exist around here.........

How about "shark she must be good"

 There are well understood, well reasoned and documented reasons as to why a 12 year old should not be playing with a senior team. The reasons relate to a number of factors, emotional development and maturity, physical development and appropriate competition, technical and skill development.  

Nothing to do with tall poppies, everything to do with the best practice to assist a player to become as good as they can. 

Bringing a child so early into senior sports of any sorts stunts their development. 

I know that for the mens game my local federation has minimum age of 15 (with parental consent and federation approval) for player to participate in senior competition.

Gareth Turnbull appointed to new role of High Performance Athlete Development Manager, as well as being U17 women's works cup coach. Release on the NZF website.

I'd argue the opposite for tennis. 

*cough* Lydia Ko

An arbitrary age that says they are old enough to play senior football is also wrong on many ocassions