All Whites coach excited by rules that put a focus on development
On November 25, German football giants Borussia Dortmund started two 20- year- olds, an 18- year- old, and a 17- year- old in the Uefa Champions League.
The following weekend, in New Zealand’s national league, the ISPS Handa Men’s Premiership, only one team started as many players that young – the Wellington Phoenix reserves, who have to under the agreement that lets the A-league club have a place in the amateur competition.
Eastern Suburbs, Hawke’s Bay United, and Waitakere United each started three players aged 20 or younger, while Canterbury United, Hamilton Wanderers, and Team Wellington started only one, and Auckland City started none, just as they did all of last season, and on all- but one occasion the season before that.
Put that stark contrast to All Whites coach Danny Hay, and he replies: ‘‘ Doesn’t that just say everything?’’
‘‘You’ve got a team that has a huge amount of pressure on them to perform – and performing at the professional level is about winning games and doing it in a particular way – yet you’ve got a coaching staff and clearly a board that are confident enough in themselves to be able to play young players and to provide them opportunities and know that it’s the right thing to do.
‘‘We don’t have hundreds of thousands of people following every single move our clubs make like Borussia Dortmund do, yet . . . if they can put an emphasis on providing a pathway for their own players, for the ones that they are developing, then, far out, in the amateur environments that we’re in, that’s the least we can do.’’
Creating more pathways and playing opportunities for under20 players was a key factor in New Zealand Football’s decision this week to revamp its top tier men’s competitions from next year, bringing the summercentric, franchise-based national league to an end and replacing it with a winter-centric, club-based competition that will start with three regional conferences mirroring existing regional leagues and culminate in a 10-team national championship from October to December.
It wasn’t the only factor – there was also a desire for a format more sustainable than the current one (the ISPS Handa Men’s Premiership is two teams lighter this summer, with the Covid-19 pandemic) and to align a football calendar that is awkwardly split into winter and summer seasons – but it was the one with the most eye-catching outcome.
Teams in the new competition will have to start two under-20 players (based on their age at the
start of the year) in every match – a blunt tool NZ Football has adopted to give young players opportunities in senior football, to get them playing at the level they need to be to realise professional ambitions, and to broaden the pool of players for international age-group tournaments.
Hay and the rest of NZ Football’s technical staff were involved in discussions about the change in format and he said the under-20 mandate was a move he was fully behind.
‘‘For me as All Whites head coach – and I know it’s the same for Martin Bullock as under-17s head coach, and Darren Bazeley as under-20s head coach – it’s exciting . . . because it doesn’t matter who you are, you are going to have to put some emphasis and focus on developing players within your own environment.
‘‘When we’re talking about amateur players working in amateur environments, it’s hard to argue that the focus shouldn’t be on player development and pathways and opportunities and from what I’ve seen, clubs, by and large, and particularly coaches, agree that that is the way they would like to move forward.
‘‘What, sadly, has been stopping that is the mentality of some boards and particularly chairmen around the need to win local leagues, so coaches feel like their jobs are at risk and that they are under pressure if they don’t win . . . so hopefully something like this now, with some regulations being put in place, is going to encourage a cultural shift.’’
Hamilton club Melville United is one of those that will find itself playing in the top tier of football in New Zealand as a result of the changes and coach Sam Wilkinson is relishing the opportunity the new format will provide.
‘‘We are exactly the type of club that was probably a bit restricted by the old format,’’ he said. ‘‘We’re not saying that we’ll be at a level where are we going to compete every year to win the league, but a club like us has always wanted an equal opportunity to play our way to the highest level in the country and this provides that.
‘‘Above and beyond that, aligning the seasons and not having a system where our young players . . . look elsewhere to have an opportunity to play at a higher level in what is still amateur football in New Zealand.’’
Wilkinson isn’t concerned about the under-20 mandate – he often started three or four players that young during the winter just gone – but said it shouldn’t go any further than that.
‘‘I do believe we just have to be careful that we don’t go over the top with these kinds of restrictions. Two is a good number, but if we start going any higher, I would have a concern that it starts becoming too much of a youth league.’’
‘‘We’re not saying that we’ll be at a level where are we going to compete every year to win the league, but a club like us has always wanted an equal opportunity to play our way to the highest level in the country and this provides that.’’ Sam Wilkinson Melville coach