Recruiting is underway for our January 2014 Tornadoes 6 tour to the USA.

Tornadoes 6 is for boys born after 1 August 1998 and before 31 December 1999. 

The team will play in a tournament in Houston, Texas hosted by MLS academy team Houston Dynamo. We will spend time in Arizona at the academy facility of Real Salt Lake (another MLS team) and we'll play in the Vegas Cup in Las Vegas before finishing our tour in California where we'll play Chivas USA, LA Galaxy, and some local club and high school teams.

We are currently putting together a training group, to start training in February.

If you want to be involved,  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

If you haven't already, follow this link to subscribe for update emails: http://eepurl.com/uyZSH

As a consolation prize for going out of the Vegas Cup, a visit to the Grand Canyon isn't too bad.

It's truly breathtaking, one of the great natural sights of the world. 

It's been a couple of days since our last blog. Dipping out of the Vegas Cup to a comprehensive defeat at the hands of an ugly team was deflating, and it was hard to put into perspective.

Del Sol was the team we had played in Arizona and absolutely battered. They weren't much of a footballing side, but were set up - as happens often in America - to win tournaments. Physical, quick, and direct. We couldn't get close enough to them in midfield to prevent balls behind our back four, and we were exposed for pace every time that happened. Really, they weren't up to much, but they knew how to win and we couldn't cope with it.

Earlier in the day we had given ourselves every chance with a comfortable 2-1 victory over local side Players SC (great name huh!). We played well and created a number of good chances, although they were always dangerous on the break. It gave us every chance going into the last game. We knew we could play better than Del Sol, and that made it all the more painful not to.

Still, we have to reflect positively on the tour. We have learned a lot, been to an incredible variety of places and played a wide range of teams. We now know what Kiwis face in the big wide world of soccer: We have to be at our absolute best to be competitive. The standard in the world is high.

Off the field we have had some great laughs, seen some cool things, and the players have had what is hopefully a life-changing trip. We have travelled almost 7,000 kilometers and every one of them has a story.

So now, back home. As we sit in the airport in Las Vegas scoffing Burger King (hey, it's the last day), it's hard not to be sad. We've been together so long, and this group of players and staff has really bonded. But for the players there is so much to take home, both in football and in life. And for the staff, it'll be nice to shift down a gear for a few weeks.

Fingers crossed for some good movies on the plane.

In the meantime, here's a happy Vegas memory:

For the neutral, tonight's game would have been worth the price of entry. It was exciting stuff.

Played on hibernating brown grass at a brand new facility in Henderson (just East of Las Vegas), it was a fast-paced and competitive encounter that we were very unlucky not to get something from.

Conditions were clear and crisp.

We started slowly, as we always seem to, and were under pressure early. We gradually found some stability, but the game was still being played entirely in our half. They had the lion's share of possession, and a bunch of attacking opportunities. They always looked like scoring, and score they did in the 18th minute.

We gave up the ball in midfield - where they were so much more aggressive and competitive than us - and they played it through to an unmarked forward who calmly placed it past an outstretched Mason.

We were playing mostly on the counter, and not very well at that, but Raf was tireless up front and central to everything we were doing, so there was no surprise at all when we played the ball forward to Raf, who managed to turn and get a run into their box only to be flattened. Jack Craughwell is a penalty-taking machine and he watch the keeper go one way before putting the ball the other.

They had one more very good chance, which Noah cleared off the line. That took us to the break 1-1, which was more than we deserved really. We had stepped it up a gear though, and the half time talk was all about carrying that into the second half.

For some reason we do not know, the referees shortened the second half to 30 minutes.

The second half we were much more involved. We had chances from set pieces, and generally the game was being played much more in the middle third. We had our moments, so did they. Dylan headed narrowly over from a Matt Hawke set piece, and then not long after Noah robbed them of the ball high up the park and drove into the box only to be bundled over. Jack Craughwell went the opposite way, the keeper guessed right, but it snuck under him. We caught it on film, here:


A couple of minutes later, Noah had a great chance to score, but couldn't quite get the ball over the advancing keeper. They went right up the other end and scored to equalise. They were so pacey up front, and caused us all sorts of trouble down the wings all day.

At 2-2 we played our best football of the night. We pressed them, took the ball off them, and could have scored a couple of times. In a three minute spell Ollie had one tipped onto the post, Dylan hit the crossbar from the following corner, and Noah pulled one just wide. Minutes later, Sam Wilson burst onto a ball in the box and powered one about a foot beyond the far post. They countered, and scored.

Heart breaking.

The only thing we can take from the game is that they were one of the tipped teams in the tournament. They are a regional selection from Northern California, so they are a very strong side. If we can take our second half performance into tomorrow's games, we can win them. And that is what we must do.

Tonight is a quiet night. Dinner and bed.