ASB Premiership Wanderers v Wellington Phoenix 25 January 2015

Wanderers SC v Wellington Phoenix Sunday 25 January Toll Stadium Whangarei Kick off 1pm #WSvWP

Welcome HI all and a slightly belated Happy New Year to all, let’s hope it’s a good successful year for Football!

The FIFA U-20 World Cup is getting closer, and everyone is starting to look towards the final phase of our build up and the actual tournament.

Countries around the world are currently fighting for those last few coveted spots, with qualifying tournaments currently taking place in CONCACAF (North & Central America) where Mexico have already taken 1 of the 4 spots available. Also further South in CONMEBAL (South America) 10 teams are also fighting it out for another 4 spots, with hopefully teams like Brazil & Argentina gaining qualification to then grace our shores with their players and style of football in June.

The FIFA U-20 World cup Draw takes place on 10th February in Auckland, where we will find out who stands in our way of trying to make history of being the first U-20 NZ Men’s team to make it out of the group stage into the knockout phases, where anything can then happen! But with the support of a large home crowd, and in home conditions, it is a great opportunity for our players to make a mark on the world stage.

Today’s Wanderers SC V Phoenix game is a great opportunity to play an ASB Premiership game for the first time here in Whangerei, at a FIFA U-20 World Cup venue, here at Toll stadium.

It is also a great opportunity for our football friends up here in Northland to see a good majority of potential NZ players take the field with obviously our Wanderers U-20 extended squad, full of eligible U20 age group players, and the Phoenix with a young side mixed in with some experienced professionals. For the players it is an opportunity for U20 players to competitively play against someone who may be fighting for the same spot in the eventual NZ World Cup squad, and should lead to a good exciting game today. There are a lot of friends , International team mates and like I said players who have an opportunity to go ahead of someone else who is in the same position, with only 21 spots available for the final World Cup squad, it should be a good game.

It is great to see the Phoenix under the guidance of my friend and very experienced Coach Andy Hedge now involved in the ASB Premiership. They are our flagship professional club here in NZ and with the Phoenix

first team doing so well in the A-League, this now gives them the same opportunities as their counterparts in Australia to give much needed game time their wider squad when needed, or help develop those young players that are the future of the game.

Our own Wanderers SC squad has grown so much over the past 2 seasons, the players are working tremendously hard every week in training, with us now in a full time training phase. They have committed to the programme and now we are starting to see both individual and team performances come through. Since the Christmas break we have played 2 games both inside QBE stadium, another U-20 World Cup venue, against historically the 2 ‘big guns’ of the ASB Premiership, Auckland City & Waitakere United, losing 1-0 to Auckland City in a very tight game, where it was widely felt that we deserved something from the game, then we delivered probably our best performance in the last 2 years, keeping our first clean sheet and beating Waitakere United 2-0 in a deserved win.

There is still a lot to continue to work on and there are still things that we can do better and more consistently, but this result and previous scorelines now provide proof that these players are worthy of competing within this league. The experience that they will all take from this, no matter where we finish in the league or whether the eventually get selected in the U20 Squad or not, will help a large proportion of NZ Youth players take this experience of playing regularly in the ASB Premiership onto their next steps in Football wherever that may be. Hopefully we will see a lot of these players come through to play high levels of football both here in NZ and hopefully some offshore over the coming years and they can look back at the Wanderers SC experience as a good solid grounding in their football careers.

I hope you enjoy the game today, thanks to everyone for making it happen and bringing football up to this part of our country.

Darren Bazeley Head Coach Wanderers SC & Junior (U-20) All Whites Football Development Manager, Northern Football

Squad Lists Wanderers SC

Wellington Phoenix

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

6 12 14 15 20 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

Zac Speedy (GK) Brock Messenger Deklan Wynne Te Atawhai Hudson-Wihongi Adam Mitchell Sam Brotherton Regont Murati Mario Ilich Angus Kilkolly Moses Dyer Finn Cochran Damian Hirst (GK) Andre De Jong Judd Baker Vincent Wiktora Ben Thomas Clayton Lewis Michael Den Heijer Noah Billingsley

Head Coach Darren Bazeley Assistant Coach Neil Emblen Goalkeeper Coach Paul Gothard Physio Allan Pearce Sport Scientist Andy Foskett Team Analyst Jase Kim Manager Rod Grove

Joshua Brindell-South Tyler Boyd Alex Rufer Jason Hicks Lewis Italiano (GK) Louis Evans Xavier Pratt Joel Stevens Oliver Sail (GK) Andrew Blake Tamupiwa Dimairo James McGarry Sam Wilson Cherbel Khouchaba Nathaniel Hailemariam Justin Gulley Joe Bell Marcel Kampman (GK) Sam Gillespie Ruairi Cahill-Fleury Head Coach Andy Hedge Christian Johnson Tech Director Valerio Raccuglia Liam Wood Strength & Conditioning Adam Allen Physio Anand Kana Football Ops Manager Shaun Gill GK Coach Jonathan Gould Asst GK Coach Chris Pile

Game Details Wanderers SC v Wellington Phoenix 1.00pm Sunday 25 January Toll Stadium, Whangarei Referee: Antony Riley AR1: Glen Lochrie AR2: Chris Wolken Fourth Official: Cory Mills

Team

P

W

D

L

F

A

GD

Pts

Team Wellington Auckland City FC Wellington Phoenix Hawkes Bay United Canterbury United Waitakere United WaiBOP United Wanderers SC Southern United

9 8 9 9 8 9 8 10 8

6 6 4 3 3 3 3 3 2

2 0 0 3 2 2 1 1 1

1 2 5 3 3 4 4 6 5

24 15 20 17 13 10 12 15 10

13 9 18 19 11 13 16 20 17

11 6 2 -2 2 -3 -4 -5 -7

20 18 12 12 11 11 10 10 7

Get Involved in Football!

Keen to give football a go?

We’ve got a number of football and Futsal programmes running in Whangarei and the Far North for all ages and skill levels.

If you’re interested in playing football get in touch!

Dave Alabaster, Football Development Officer Northland Dave.Alabaster@nff.org.nz Dan Johnston, Football Development Officer Far North, Dan.Johnston@nff.org.nz Christina Taylor, Northland Administration Officer, Christina.Taylor@nff.org.nz

For more information go to our website www.nff.org.nz

A: Lion Foundation House, QBE Stadium, Stadium Drive, Albany, PO Box 300 537, Albany, North Shore City 0752 W: nff.org.nz Photo 1 Roger Pearson Photo 2 Photomac Photo 3 Alida Shanks

Game Days at Northland Events Centre, Whangarei Saturday 30 May Kick off 4pm Tuesday 2 June Kick off 1pm Sunday 7 June Kick off 2pm Thursday 11 June – Round of 16 – Kick off 4pm

The Official Draw takes place 10 February – find out who is coming to Whangarei!

More information & tickets available at

FIFA.com/nz2015

ASB3487/MDP/02

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Big goals, or small goals, they’re all successes to be celebrated. And because football is all about goals (and savings too of course) we’re very proud to support it at every level. New Zealand Football, Succeed on.

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