Author: index

Hudson Happy with Friendly Games against US and Mexico

index

New Zealand coach Anthony Hudson express his delight at being able to test the team in the friendly matches against Mexico and the United States before the start of the World Cup qualification campaign.


New Zealand are one of the international teams not having a fixture in September. Instead, the team will be playing in use against Mexico and the United States in the first half of October. This will be used as a preparation for the oceanic World Cup qualifying group stages, which begin in November with a home match against New Caledonia.

After having successfully negotiated the second round of oceanic World Cup qualification, New Zealand will come up against New Caledonia and Fiji. Unlike the other two opponents, New Zealand have the ability to improve themselves when they come up against such tough teams. Fiji andNew Caledonia do not have any preparatory matches going into these tough qualification games. Hudson says that the players are extremely serious about making it into the World Cup 2018 in Russia. Since taking over the national team in 2014, Hudson has been working towards the single aim of achieving qualification. New Zealand shocked the world when they appeared at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
Read More

Anthony Hudson is currently preparing New Zealand for the upcoming Confederations Cup

index

English coach Anthony Hudson is currently preparing New Zealand for the upcoming Confederations Cup in Russia.


The England national team will not be a representative at the upcoming Confederations Cup in 2017, but they will at least have a representative in the form of Hudson. The national team coach is determined to take New Zealand back to lofty heights once again. Under the regime of the previous manager, the national team managed to do that and thinkable by qualifying for the World Cup 2010 in South Africa. Since then, however, the team has not been performing well.

The retirement of several high profile players has also contributed to New Zealand’s demise. Hudson has the task of rebuilding the team once again. It is easier said than done since there is an extremely small pool of players to choose from. Furthermore, even these small number of players are largely playing their football in different parts of the world. It makes it extremely difficult to bring them together as a unit. Confederations Cup preparations, though, are expected to help in this regard and Hudson himself accepted this aspect. Even though New Zealand’s Olympic team was disqualified, the team did extremely well under the management of Hudson.
Read More

New Zealand wants to motivate junior coaches through a competition

index

New Zealand Football wants to motivate junior coaches to perform better by allowing them to participate in a Coach of The Year competition.


The reward will be two tickets to assist at the FIFA Club World Cup that will take place in Japan. The competition will be run in association with McDonald’s.

New Zealand Football knows that if football is going to develop in the country, it needs to start at the grassroots level. For this reason, they want to make sure that coaches work in the best condition and that they are motivated to do their job.

Simon Kenny, who is the head of communication for McDonald’s New Zealand, said that it is an honor for the company to be supporting this initiative. He stated that he is also a junior coach himself, and he knows the challenges that are associated with this position. He said that junior coaches are influential on the development of a young footballer. He stated that it does not matter whether the child is playing for fun or want to become a professional footballer, a junior coach is an essential part of his development. For this reason, McDonald’s want to provide this extra piece of motivation to junior coaches.
Read More

New Zealand will have four referees officiating at the Rio Olympics

index

The New Zealand Football Referees Committee has announced that 4 referees have been selected for the Rio Olympics.

They are namely Matthew Conger and Simon Lount for the male tournament while Anna-Marie Keighley and Sarah Jones have been selected for the women competition.


Rod Pelosi, who is the deputy chairman of The New Zealand Football Referees Committee, has stated that it is a big honor to officiate at the Olympics football tournament. For him, it has the same value as officiating at the FIFA World Cup. He said that the referees have earned the right to officiate at the Olympics thanks to their excellent performance on the pitch.

He stated that it had always been the objective of the New Zealand Football Referees Committee to develop quality referees that can officiate at the highest level. He said that the four referees that have been designated to officiate at the Olympics had been consistent at different FIFA tournaments, and this is why they have been rewarded. Read More

New Zealand will be face to face with the US in 2016

index

New Zealand will be face to face with the US in the 2016 FIFA Under 20 Women’s World Cup. This event will take place from November 13, 2016 to December 3, 2016. The Group C team will also face off against France and Ghana after the official draw done weeks ago in Zurich, Switzerland. There is no official broadcast information as of yet and that will become available as the year progresses.

The tournament will open with the women’s U20 US team going against France on November 14. The match for New Zealand to square off against the US will take place on November 17. There are two stadiums for the event (one being Sir Hubert Murray Stadium and the other being the National Football Stadium). Both stadiums reside in Papua of New Guinea (the capital). Read More

Zidane’s appointment has made a positive impact in Real Madrid

index

ZinedineZidane took up the coaching role of Real Madrid on January 4 of 2016 and even though it has been a short period of time since this managerial switch was done, it has already appeared to have made a positive impact in the Spanish club.

So far, Zidane has been in charge of Real Madrid for 2 matches and both of these games concluded with resounding victories.

Cristiano Ronaldo’s Real Madrid has recently stated that the appointment of ZinedineZidane as the new head coach of the Spanish outfit has raised the spirit of the team and this is starting to become evident in the overwhelming results that they have been claiming. Even though these results haven’t been against top teams in the Spanish League, they still are great results which keep Real Madrid in the higher section of La Liga along with their rivals Barcelona and Athletic Madrid.

“I honestly notice an improvement in the team’s attitude with Zidane’s arrival. The players feel a little more empathy for Zidane, do not ask me why because I couldn’t tell you, that’s football. Truthfully, with some coaches you have more empathy than others. The players feel more empathy for Zidane.I don’t like to draw comparisons with Rafael Benitez but Zidane is closer to the players, he knows the players better because he was one, he is a great manager and is going to show that with us. My relationship with Zizou has been good for the last two years, when he was assistant manager.” Real Madrid’s star Cristiano Ronaldo said. Read More

Danny Blind says that he is very much looking forward to playing in the spicy World Cup

index

Netherlands manager Danny Blind says that he is very much looking forward to playing in the spicy World Cup qualification group, which also includes France along with Sweden aside from other teams. Netherlands were in danger of getting a tough group due to the recent plummet in the world rankings. Despite finishing third in the World Cup 2014, the team has been on a downhill path ever since the appointment of Guus Hiddink. After failing to a

rrest the slide of the team for several months, the former Real Madrid and Chelsea manager announced his resignation a few weeks ago. Blind, who is the father of Manchester United defender Daley Blind, has been appointed as his replacement.

He is straightaway given the task of helping the team do well in the Euro 2016. After this comes the task of getting the national team to the World Cup 2018. This task has been made slightly difficult due to the tough group stages. Apart from opponents like Sweden, Belarus, Bulgaria, and Luxembourg, Netherlands will also be up against France. Didier Deschamps’ has called Netherlands has the favourites to top the group, but Blind will know that France will take some stopping to do. Only the winner of the group will reach the World Cup 2018 directly with the second team having to negotiate a tough play-off. Read More

New Zealand under 20 team will be taking on the Portugal

index

The New Zealand under 20 team will be taking on the Portugal under 20 team in the knockout stages of the under 20 World Cup.

Since this is a home World Cup for New Zealand, they have been expected to do slightly better. However, not many gave them hope of reaching the knockout stages of the tournament. They will be taking on Portugal, who already have a strong line-up of youth players. The winner of this tie will be taking on either Brazil or Uruguay, who are both even stronger. Hence, reaching this stage of the tournament is seen as a big achievement by the junior all whites.

National team manager Anthony Hudson will be in the stands to witness the game and he believed that the weather will not be a major threat to a great game of football. It is expected that there will be bad weather for much of the game. More than a victory, game time for some of the players will be an extremely important aspect for Hudson. He has already given as much as six junior all whites and opportunity in the senior team. The manager believes that it will be a great experience for those players to be involved in such a major event. Read More