Soccer: Football Kingz tap under-17 talent pool

By TERRY MADDAFORD

The Football Kingz have quickly hopped on the under-17 bandwagon.

Just days after the finish of the under-17 world championships, New Zealand defender Cameron Knowles and goalkeeper Sacha Nathu were called into the Kingz for a friendly against the national under-23 side as part of their preparation for the Oceania Olympic qualifying tournament, which starts in Auckland on December 11.

Kingz assistant coach Shane Rufer was encouraged by what he saw and hopes more of the under-17 side will join New Zealand's first professional side.

"We have two more games planned against the under-23 side early next week," Rufer said. "I would love to bring in more players from the under-17s. The New Zealand team did well [at the world championships] and showed the benefits of a good preparation.

"They showed if you get away from the New Zealand mentality of training on Tuesdays and Thursdays and hope to beat Brazil on Saturday you can succeed.

"The Confederations Cup showed the gap between New Zealand and teams like Brazil is getting smaller.

"In the Football Kingz we have a path to professional football but there need to be attainable goals. For me and [player-coach brother] Wynton the most important thing is being able to feed the system. If I had my way, we would have 20 players in the Kingz squad, another 100 outside the dressing-room door pushing to get in and another 1000 outside the stadium awaiting their chance."

With injury and suspension problems, there could be further changes when the Kingz meet Gippsland Falcons at North Harbour Stadium on Friday night.

Aaran Lines, who began well against Adelaide Force last week, is out with a knee injury, Michael Utting has been sidelined for at least a month with a dislocated shoulder, Batram Suri is still continuing his long comeback from injury, while Harry Ngata, Lee Jones and Che Bunce are nursing injuries.

Levent Osman will serve a one-match ban after being sent off against Adelaide.

"We will be stretched, but we only want players who really want to wear the [Kingz] shirt.

"Only three or four players, in my view, have that attitude right now," Rufer said.

The Kingz, with three wins from their first nine games, go into Friday's fixture two points ahead of Gippsland, who have won only twice.

* New Zealand referee Derek Rugg sent two All Whites packing in the last minutes of the game between the Melbourne Knights and Sydney Olympic last Sunday.

Paul Urlovic and Chris Zoricich were sent off in the last minute after receiving second yellow cards and will miss this week's games against Wollongong and Adelaide respectively.