All Whites
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@canefan said in All Whites:
This is sad. He was one of my favourite players in that '82 team along with Woodin and Rufer. He was tough and fearless
My first thought reading your post was that goal against Aussie
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@Higgins said in All Whites:
@canefan Thanks for posting that link, it brings back great memories and shows Grant Turner in a much different light to what I generally thought.
Obviously a very different man off the pitch. Because he was a tough uncompromising bastard on it
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I've just been watching a replay of this mornings NZ-Peru game played in front of 32,000 Peruvian fans in Barcelona. As this is the main warmup game before the WC playoff game against Costa Rica, the interest was to see what formation Hay used and who started. He went with a 3-5-2 formation. Peru dominated possession in the game but didn't create too many chance so NZ would have been reasonably pleased with their defending. NZ did have some luck with the crossbar and upright saving them but Peru needed a mistake from Sail to score their only goal. On the flip side, NZ didn't create much on attack except the shot from Greive which was straight at the GK, and a late goal disallowed for offside. No corners until the last minute of the game as I think set pieces might be the best chance of goals.
A behind closed doors game against Oman to be played later in the week.
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Yep, a common story for NZ teams against non-Oceania countries. I only watched the 1st half from Brisbane but thought NZ were the better team and should have taken at least one of those chances. Today was less impressive but good to see 35,000 turn up for Winston Reid's last game for the All Whites.
I like what Hay has done with this team but there needs to be an end-product from the good play.
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It will be interesting to see where things go from here. The majority of players clearly wanted Hay to stay, despite his coaching style, so there is a disconnect between the team and NZ Football HQ/High Performance staff.
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I'm not too worried that Hay has gone - the team has been playing a good style of football but no end product. I also think the style is more down to the quality of players getting produced and more and more of them playing pro football at a decent level. Would love to see Des Buckingham get the job. Key thing before the next world cup is getting them playing more regularly.
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NZF shoot themselves in the foot again. Firstly, they could have matched Des Buckingham's contract with Mumbai City but choose to move in another direction. Then CEO Andrew Pragnell seemed confident John Herdman would accept the contract he had in front of him, but he has now chosen to remain as the Canadian coach. One of the final unsuccessful candidates was Phoenix coach Ufuk Talay, but he is no longer interested.
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@bayimports said in All Whites:
@canefan wow that would be cool, I think that would have significant interest too, probably big question is how many players released at this time of year?
You'd have to play it in the European off-season I guess. So much money in football these days, and a lower priority placed on international games. But the players might turn out.....
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Bump.
A big game at Eden Park tonight when the All Whites play New Caledonia in the Oceania World Cup qualifying final. Win this, and they book a place at the 2026 WC joining co-hosts United States, Canada and Mexico. Expanding the WC to 48 teams has made qualifying from Oceania much easier now but it will still be the last chance for some veterans to go to a WC.
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We should win this pretty comfortably, and having Chris Wood makes that a lot easier, since we have a reliable goal threat. Generally, when we lose Oceania games it's because we concede a silly goal and can't score.
Wood is probably the best to ever play for the All Whites, and I think he deserves a second crack at the world cup, and it's pretty neat that he's always so keen to turn out as well.
Based on the performance against Fiji, I can't see us getting out of our pool, our defence looks pretty shaky. Fiji were desperate unlucky not to get a couple against us.