Unsure if this has been discussed but i have read that Iraq are playing a friendly in NZ before their Asia qualifiers with Australia in August.
Wikipedia has a game listed in NZ on the 22nd August. (wikipedia I know blah blah blah)
see here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_national_footba...
If true I reckon a decent game against a decent opposition. first home game for two years since South Afirca in 2014?
It is amazing how many more games teams in Asia play in a year. If the All Whites played that many games a year, surely the team would be much better.
NZ Football must have said "Yeah. Nah." to the Iraq fixture.
It's been removed from Iraq's Wikipedia now:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_national_footba...
The only friendly they have listed now between World Cup qualifiers is away to Qatar in August.
I sure hope NZF does manage to arrange some friendlies though in the nine month break before our next World Cup qualifier in March 2017....
It's such along break after the OFC Nations Cup before the AW's have another competitive match in March 2017.
Obtaining friendlies in every FIFA window is going to be important.
No problems with the match schedule next year which is shaping as a busy year with potentially the 2017 Confederation Cup and there's the next round of World Cup qualifiers from March next year and the Oceania qualifying final in October 2017and the Inter-Continental Play-Off.
So, getting out of the OFC Nations Cup successfully, there is a lot to look forward to with potentially ten competitive matches for the All Whites next year (and no doubt friendlies on top of that):
- four Third Round home-and-away World Cup qualifiers March onwards
- Confederations Cup Finals Russia 18 June - 3 July NZT - minimum three matches
- OFC World Cup Qualifying Final October 2017 - one match
- Inter-Continental Play-Off for World Cup place - two legs November 2017
OFC Qualifying Final is home and away, I think?
And there's been some chat that OFC third round will start this November, despite what FFA says - would mean no clashes/logjams for the Confeds Cup team (us, hopefully) in June 2017
Helping our cause for friendlies will be the fact that Asian WCQ has moved on to the third round, leaving just 12 teams occupied rather than 40.
Looking for pairs of games in east Asia or east & West Asia is probably our best bet (given that it's impossible for any team to play in NZ and then anywhere else, bar Australia (and maybe Indonesia)