World Cup 2010 Previews: New Zealand

The Way They Were

We’re keeping with the antipodal leitmotif for our World Cup previews today. Next up are the Aussies’ South Pacific neighbors New Zealand.

Country: New Zealand

Nicknames: All Whites (which is absolutely the best nickname to take to the formerly apartheid host nation)

Coach: Ricki Herbert. Herbert has spent almost the entirety of his playing and coaching career in Oceania. He did have a stint as a player at Wolverhampton from 1984-1986, coinciding with the club suffering three consecutive relegations and ending up in the 4th tier of English football. But hey, look at him now. He’s managing a World Cup squad.

WC Fixtures (Group F):

New Zealand v. Slovakia – June 15, Rustenburg
New Zealand v. Italy – June 20, Nelspruit
New Zealand v. Paraguay – Juner 24, Polokwane

(And let’s note: If you’re following the Kiwis, you’re travel itinerary is kind of crappy).

New Zealand 23-Man Roster:

Goalkeepers: Mark Paston (Wellington Phoenix), Glen Moss (Melbourne Victory), James Bannatyne (Team Wellington)

Defenders: Ryan Nelsen (Blackburn Rovers), Ivan Vicelich (Auckland City), Ben Sigmund (Wellington Phoenix), Winston Reid (FC Midtjylland), Tommy Smith (Ipswich Town), Tony Lochhead (Wellington Phoenix), Andy Boyens (New York Red Bulls)

Midfielders: Simon Elliott (clubless), Tim Brown (Wellington Phoenix), Leo Bertos (Wellington Phoenix), Michael McGlinchey (Motherwell), Aaron Clapham (Canterbury United), David Mulligan (clubless), Jeremy Brockie (Newcastle Jets), Andy Barron (Team Wellington), Jeremy Christie (FC Tampa Bay)

Strikers: Chris Killen (Middlesbrough), Shane Smeltz (Gold Coast United), Chris Wood (West Bromwich Albion), Rory Fallon (Plymouth Argyle)

Home Base in South Africa:

History in WC Competition: This is the Kiwi’s second trip to the World Cup. The first, eh, it didn’t go so well. They went 0-3 in Spain 1982 and got dismantled in each match: 5-2 to Scotland, 3-0 to USSR, 4-0 to Brazil. On the plus side, they can’t possibly lose to the Soviets ever again.

Road to South Africa: New Zealand took the easy route, going through Oceania. As the winner of the 2008 OFC Nations Cup, New Zealand won the right to play the 5th place Asian (AFC) team in a home-and-home for a spot in South Africa. That turned out to be Bahrain.

The Save That Sent Them to South Africa

Just a note on the OFC qualification. It’s ridiculously easy. In 2002, Australia won its four-game opening round group with a +66 GD. That included a 31-0 win over American Samoa in which someone named Archie Thompson scored 13 goals by himself. With the Aussies having defected to Asia, it was pretty much fait accompli that New Zealand would win Oceania. And if we may digress further, Australia didn’t leave Oceania because it was too easy but because having to play the 5th place team from COMNEBOL home-and-home (the old set up) was more of a crapshoot than going through the (relatively weak) Asian confederation.

Of course the 5th place in CONMEBOL now squares off against the 4th place from CONCACAF and the winner of Oceania plays the (even relatively weaker) 5th place team from AFC. Confused? Basically by staying put, New Zealand was the beneficiary of the Aussies trying to find a path of lesser resistance.

Still, for this go round, New Zealand managed to drop a match to Fiji in the OFC Nations Cup and finished the 4-team round robin with a mere +9 GD. Hardly dominating stuff but enough to get the job accomplished.

The first leg of the home-and-home at Bahrain was one of the most unwatchable matches in the history of the sport. Actually, that should just be ‘sport’ period. It would be a disservice to boredom to limit it to football. I would know, I sat through every minute of it. In a bar. By myself. Where, at half, the lone working staff member actually asked me why I was still watching. Solid question to be sure, but the outcome was still in doubt until the final whistle.

But the Kiwis earned a 0-0 draw and put their fate in their own hands for the return leg in Wellington. Really not much sense in trying to build up some suspense here as you can tell from the the fact that the All Whites are playing in South Africa what happened. The Kiwis got a 45th minute strike from Rory Fallon, then saved a penalty just on the other side of the break. The 1-0 win put them through to their second World Cup.

Team Style: Does that assume New Zealand plays with style? They don’t. Industry and spirit? Sure. They might even be Ecksteinian. Are we talking formation then? In that case, expect the Kiwis to roll out the unusual 3-4-3. It’s seldom used in the upper echelons of soccer but particularly peculiar for the All Whites as they are weakest in midfield, and have a dearth of overall team speed.

The three up top makes a little more sense as, even being sub-par and serviceable in lower leagues, Chris Killen, Shane Smeltz, and Rory Fallon are among the better players on the squad. The lack of cover in back is a headscratcher. So expect the midfield to play deep, very deep; so much so it might look like a 7-0-3 with the squad looking to counter and get an odd cross redirected on target. It might be more effective if the Kiwis were taller up top (Killen, Smeltz and Fallon are all right around 6′ 1″) It’s not the most sophisticated approach. There is a “but” though.

Recent Form: And this is where we go “but”. New Zealand has played three tune-ups to this point, all three against World Cup sides. And they’ve not only played surprisingly well but they’ve played better each time out. They lost 2-0 to Mexico. Okay, not good. But the match was played in Pasadena, CA., in front of somewhere around 80,000 – 90,000. Maybe 15 of those were New Zealand supporters. So it was about as hostile of a crowd as they could hope to manufacture. Still the Kiwis created some good chances early and, after going down 1-0 in the second half, they had what should have been the leveler ruled out on a piss poor offside call.

Next they went to Melbourne, and if not for a goal in the 4th minute of second-half stoppage, they get a draw against the Cup-bound Aussies. They did lose but with an inexperienced back line, the visitors were surprisingly impressive in stifling the hosts. It also caused some handwringing by the Aussies that they won’t do as well this summer as four years ago (they won’t and that might have nothing to do with the Kiwis almost drawing).

Not A Fluke

Then things got nutty when they took on Serbia in Austria. Look, if nothing else, the All Whites are racking up frequent flier miles, so after this odyssey is over, they can take a nice vacation.

Anyway, New Zealand beat Serbia 1-0. Had this been an actual Cup match it’s bordering on Senegal-over-France territory for upsets. As it was, the match went almost entirely unnoticed save for a so-called ‘riot’ Nemanja Vidic had to quell. Here’s the thing, the final score wasn’t flukey in the least. Of the three best scoring chances in the match, the Kiwis had two of them. They also got a couple of quality saves from Mark Paston and generally thwarted any organized attack from the Euros. Serbia might have been without Dejan Stankovic, but New Zealand were without maybe their best striker—and ‘best’ is truly relative here—as Chris Killen was out getting married. Really? Wonder if that was scheduled before the Kiwis qualified.

What the Media Says: From the Telegraph: “They will struggle to gain a point in South Africa and would appear to be the whipping boy of any group with their collection of journeymen and lower league players.” Hey, that’s what happens when you write previews a full seven months ahead of time (that was dated from November of 2009, which was before the draw even).

Key Players: Tommy Smith and Winston Reid. Who? Exactly. Smith is a former England youth international who played his first match for the All Whites in the warm-up against Mexico. But Hebert looks pretty set on starting the two young defenders. Between them they’ll have six or seven caps by the time New Zealand kicks off its opener against Slovakia. That’s precious little experience for 2/3rds of the back line heading into the World Cup.

Shane Smeltz and Chris Killen are not the most creative strikers around—in open space they aren’t much of a threat to many defenders—but if they can get any kind of decent service, they’re both average finishers. But let’s not kid ourselves, Killen couldn’t hack it at Celtic, and the SPL is now a glorified MLS with history. And Smeltz plays in the Hyandai A-Leage. For a reason. With scoring likely to be scarce, the Kiwis will have to punch above their weight along the back line to have a chance of springing an upset.

Also of note is Andy Barron. He’s not good or anything, but he is a rarity at the World Cup: he’s an amateur. He actually has a day job in wealth management for a bank. Pretty cool that, for at least one day, he gets to share the stage with the reigning World Champions in Italy. He has been capped 11 times for New Zealand, so it would be particularly cool if he got to play that day.

Question Marks: After the Confederations Cup last year, the most obvious question was “Would New Zealand be able to score at the World Cup?” Sure the Kiwis earned a draw with the Iraqis to get its first ever point at a FIFA tournament, but it was a goalless draw. Additionally, there certainly wouldn’t be another team as bad as the Iraqis in South Africa, or at least not one whose federation had been decimated by war.

In an email back about last year we pretty much pegged the over under for the performance right at that of 1982, specifically 0-3 with a -10 GD. But on recent form, there’s reason for more optimism amongst the All Whites. At a minimum, they aren’t going to be a pushover.

UF Prediction: We’ll take the “over” on the 1982 results (better than a -10 GD). The Telegraph wasn’t actually wrong in saying that New Zealand will struggle to earn a point, but this is the World Cup, all points are hard to come by.

So screw it, we’re going to say New Zealand pulls a massive upset and wins a match in South Africa (and we’re this close—put your thumb and forefinger about a centimeter apart—to calling it against Italy). And we haven’t even been drinking all day. Yes, this team isn’t particularly skilled and they lack overall speed. But this group doesn’t punish them for that latter deficiency too much (Italy is old, old old; and Slovakia doesn’t have any real burners to punish opposition down the wings); and having 11 players working as an efficient unit can cover for individual brilliance.

Okay, we’re not sure how much we believe ourselves when it comes to the back half of that statement, but the Kiwis have been playing surprisingly well as a team in the build up to South Africa.