No big deal. NZF are doing a full post WC review which sounds like it won't be finished until Nov.
I guess once that's completed, they will make an annoucement post the Nov FIFA window whether Baze has been given an extension or told no thanks.
Maybe like Hay post the Costa Rica review in 2022 he'll get 'Invitation to Reapply'. ie you did okay but we are going to see who else is out there.
Unlikely prickly Danny, I can see Dazza sort of being okay with that idea. I mean he knows he got the job in the first place, due to basically all the better options dropping out. Though even Baze may have sense of pride limits, to that happening twice.
Poppa has only got a 6 month extension until next January's Asian Cup, when I expect he will have some 'must play more exciting football' KPIs.
Would performances in the upcoming windows bare any weighting to potential contract renewal, or will the sole focus be on the lead up to and eventual world cup performance? Could short term memories and back-to-back 3 nil at-home drubbings over 138th ranked India be enough to speak louder than a complete mental collapse at the exact halfway mark of the All Whites tournament?
Genuinely curious on the opinions of fellow fans here - If in the next window we were to take the learnings from the WC and surprise upset a higher ranked team, and also put in a competent could have gone either way draw against another 40-80 ranked team. Follow this up with a big make a statement back to back wins at home in November which justifies the general turning up of their noses reaction people have had to the of the quality of opposition selected for the Nov fixtures. Would people be comfortable with a Baze contract renewal or are we still gunning for a new coach regardless of what occurs across the next potential 4-6 fixtures before the years end?
Rock Hopper wrote: Would performances in the upcoming windows bare any weighting to potential contract renewal, or will the sole focus be on the lead up to and eventual world cup performance? Could short term memories and back-to-back 3 nil at-home drubbings over 138th ranked India be enough to speak louder than a complete mental collapse at the exact halfway mark of the All Whites tournament?
Genuinely curious on the opinions of fellow fans here - If in the next window we were to take the learnings from the WC and surprise upset a higher ranked team, and also put in a competent could have gone either way draw against another 40-80 ranked team. Follow this up with a big make a statement back to back wins at home in November which justifies the general turning up of their noses reaction people have had to the of the quality of opposition selected for the Nov fixtures. Would people be comfortable with a Baze contract renewal or are we still gunning for a new coach regardless of what occurs across the next potential 4-6 fixtures before the years end?
No immediate and sudden need to get a new coach in next week. 3 years out from the next WC seems reasonable. Also however no need to automatically renew DBs contract for another 4 years. Try hard to get a next level coach into the role, someone who can lift the AW's up to the next level
PKB wrote: I think some people should remember the All Whites are ranked well below many teams in the World Cup for reasons. We haven't earned the right to gatekeep what teams the All Whites play beyond OFC, far from it, maybe closer to 2030. A lot of basics to improve on goalkeeping, defending next few trainings and games after being destroyed by Egypt and Belgium. I'm pleased they get India this year. Higher ranked opponents, that can wait until next FIFA Series.
Next FIFA Series won't be until 2028 - and also no guarantee we will get to host it again as for the 2024 one we were in Egypt
PKB wrote: I think some people should remember the All Whites are ranked well below many teams in the World Cup for reasons. We haven't earned the right to gatekeep what teams the All Whites play beyond OFC, far from it, maybe closer to 2030. A lot of basics to improve on goalkeeping, defending next few trainings and games after being destroyed by Egypt and Belgium. I'm pleased they get India this year. Higher ranked opponents, that can wait until next FIFA Series.
Next FIFA Series won't be until 2028 - and also no guarantee we will get to host it again as for the 2024 one we were in Egypt
It will be challenging, but I think the All Whites must take what they can get for friendlies until then. So many teams won't play, look at Brazil, they chose Australia for friendlies next because they are much higher ranked. I hope the All Whites could at least get China again if others won't play.
Getting meaningful friendlies is the key, especially over the next 3 years. Given our WC qualifying only happens very late. The big problem we have is that the teams ranked around us at 85, will not want or be able to afford to travel to NZ, so home games will be limited. 10 Teams Above New Zealand (Ranked 75th–84th)
75th: Finland
76th: Israel
77th: Bolivia
78th: Kosovo
79th: Oman
80th: Montenegro
81st: Guinea
82nd: Curaçao
83rd: Syria
84th: Gabon
The only two of those above us that could afford to travel to us in a window would be Finland and Israel. But whether they'd want to is another question. Same questions need to be asked for the teams below us.
Angola
Haiti
Uganda
Zambia
China
Bahrain
Benin
Thailand
Palestine
Again, maybe two of those could afford to get their players here for a window, but would they want to? Thailand would be the closest of those teams and shortest travel, but that's assuming their players are local.
It's an issue that NZF need to solve for any new manager.
theprof wrote: Getting meaningful friendlies is the key, especially over the next 3 years. Given our WC qualifying only happens very late. The big problem we have is that the teams ranked around us at 85, will not want or be able to afford to travel to NZ, so home games will be limited. 10 Teams Above New Zealand (Ranked 75th–84th)
75th: Finland
76th: Israel
77th: Bolivia
78th: Kosovo
79th: Oman
80th: Montenegro
81st: Guinea
82nd: Curaçao
83rd: Syria
84th: Gabon
The only two of those above us that could afford to travel to us in a window would be Finland and Israel. But whether they'd want to is another question. Same questions need to be asked for the teams below us.
Angola
Haiti
Uganda
Zambia
China
Bahrain
Benin
Thailand
Palestine
Again, maybe two of those could afford to get their players here for a window, but would they want to? Thailand would be the closest of those teams and shortest travel, but that's assuming their players are local.
It's an issue that NZF need to solve for any new manager.
We're only around those teams because:
1: We don't play enough formal FIFA comepetitive games (the loss of the Confeds Cup games is a big one for us)
2: We don't win when we play decent teams.
3: We've not had a decent AW manger in 40 odd years. The 2010 team did well as we had NZ's greatest ever captain in the side, a number of strikers performing at a good level, and half of the squad at the Nix playing together week in week out. We all know Herbert was only really a figure head standing on the shoulders of others at the Nix and AWs at the time.
Really our true ranking is 40-60 and we saw that in the WC. If we were in any other confederation, we would be so much higher and would recieve a lot more respect.
Supporter of the world's best football teams: Waikato..., Kingz FC, NZ Knights, The Nix, The Argyle & of course the All Whites
If we play good football (like we did for half of the world cup), get more players into european leagues, hopefully more decent teams will want to play us despite our on paper rankings.
I hope there's a strategy to get our ranking up over the next 4 years, as that will not make as a more attractive proposition, but could help us sneak into pot 3 should we qualify for 2030 WC.
theprof wrote: Getting meaningful friendlies is the key, especially over the next 3 years. Given our WC qualifying only happens very late. The big problem we have is that the teams ranked around us at 85, will not want or be able to afford to travel to NZ, so home games will be limited. 10 Teams Above New Zealand (Ranked 75th–84th)
75th: Finland
76th: Israel
77th: Bolivia
78th: Kosovo
79th: Oman
80th: Montenegro
81st: Guinea
82nd: Curaçao
83rd: Syria
84th: Gabon
The only two of those above us that could afford to travel to us in a window would be Finland and Israel. But whether they'd want to is another question. Same questions need to be asked for the teams below us.
Angola
Haiti
Uganda
Zambia
China
Bahrain
Benin
Thailand
Palestine
Again, maybe two of those could afford to get their players here for a window, but would they want to? Thailand would be the closest of those teams and shortest travel, but that's assuming their players are local.
It's an issue that NZF need to solve for any new manager.
We're only around those teams because:
1: We don't play enough formal FIFA comepetitive games (the loss of the Confeds Cup games is a big one for us)
2: We don't win when we play decent teams.
3: We've not had a decent AW manger in 40 odd years. The 2010 team did well as we had NZ's greatest ever captain in the side, a number of strikers performing at a good level, and half of the squad at the Nix playing together week in week out. We all know Herbert was only really a figure head standing on the shoulders of others at the Nix and AWs at the time.
Really our true ranking is 40-60 and we saw that in the WC. If we were in any other confederation, we would be so much higher and would recieve a lot more respect.
So we’re only ranked as low as we are because we don’t play games and when we do we lose. Which is evidence we should be ranked 40th.
I dont understand the rationale either, we dont play better games because the better teams dont want to come here to play us, the can travel less and have better games at their doorstep. The better teams also dont want to play someone as low as us. So to get better games we have to get higher in the rankings and somehow closer to the teams we want to play - remembering our closest neighbour cannot make time to come play us unless we beg. I'm sure if we played the likes of China and other Asian based teams more often we'd get wins and move up the rankings, but they are very busy in their own qualifying cycle to even want to play friendlies against us.
theprof wrote: Getting meaningful friendlies is the key, especially over the next 3 years. Given our WC qualifying only happens very late. The big problem we have is that the teams ranked around us at 85, will not want or be able to afford to travel to NZ, so home games will be limited. 10 Teams Above New Zealand (Ranked 75th–84th)
75th: Finland
76th: Israel
77th: Bolivia
78th: Kosovo
79th: Oman
80th: Montenegro
81st: Guinea
82nd: Curaçao
83rd: Syria
84th: Gabon
The only two of those above us that could afford to travel to us in a window would be Finland and Israel. But whether they'd want to is another question. Same questions need to be asked for the teams below us.
Angola
Haiti
Uganda
Zambia
China
Bahrain
Benin
Thailand
Palestine
Again, maybe two of those could afford to get their players here for a window, but would they want to? Thailand would be the closest of those teams and shortest travel, but that's assuming their players are local.
It's an issue that NZF need to solve for any new manager.
We're only around those teams because:
1: We don't play enough formal FIFA comepetitive games (the loss of the Confeds Cup games is a big one for us)
2: We don't win when we play decent teams.
3: We've not had a decent AW manger in 40 odd years. The 2010 team did well as we had NZ's greatest ever captain in the side, a number of strikers performing at a good level, and half of the squad at the Nix playing together week in week out. We all know Herbert was only really a figure head standing on the shoulders of others at the Nix and AWs at the time.
Really our true ranking is 40-60 and we saw that in the WC. If we were in any other confederation, we would be so much higher and would recieve a lot more respect.
So we’re only ranked as low as we are because we don’t play games and when we do we lose. Which is evidence we should be ranked 40th.
Don't be so facetious.
We only play decent sides in friendlies which means that any kind of result against them does not really help us (see Ivory Coast win).
The Nations Cup is once every four years whereas the African Nations Cup is every other year and Europe has arranged it so that nearly every friendly they play is "competitive". Those three points there work badly against us. Note the teams around us: mostly African and European for these reasons.
Supporter of the world's best football teams: Waikato..., Kingz FC, NZ Knights, The Nix, The Argyle & of course the All Whites
Realistically the only way for the AWs to improve their ranking to like top 60 (so some chance of Pot C at the next World Cup), is being in a competitive tourney like the Gold Cup or new FIFA ASEAN Cup - and going deep in either of those tournies.
But hey a 64 team (16 pools of 4 teams) WC for 2030 is going to be examined by FIFA. So hey we maybe we fall into Pot C for 2030, by getting our ranking low 70s??
Then draw Thailand from Pot D in Malaga, so get that yearned for first World Cup win without improving our ranking too much over the next 4 years.
In the interview, Infantino said expanding the 2026 World Cup to 48 teams had been “100 percent” the right decision, describing the new format as a “huge success”.
He argued the larger tournament had strengthened football globally, pointing to the performances of smaller football nations.
“Teams from every continent scored goals and earned at least one point,” Infantino said. “Nine out of 10 African teams reached the knockout stage. At the last World Cup, there were only five teams from Africa. That just goes to show how important it is to include all teams, to give them this opportunity to participate,” he added.
Asked whether the competition could eventually grow to 64 teams, Infantino said the proposal “will be examined and discussed”.
He said the global tournament should be organised “for the whole world” rather than only for football’s traditional powers, arguing that greater participation means better football.
“If you don’t give smaller countries a chance to participate in the World Cup, they’ll lack the incentive to keep improving,” he said.
What would a 64-team World Cup look like? FIFA has not explained how a 64-team World Cup would be structured, but one option would be to return to the traditional format with a larger field.
The tournament could feature 16 groups of four teams with each nation playing three group-stage matches. The top two teams from each group would then advance to a 32-team knockout stage.
Africa is demanding more places. CAF 54 countries are pushing Infantino. Giants like Nigeria, Cameroon and Mali were not at this tournament and that doesn't seem fair.
coochiee wrote: Realistically the only way for the AWs to improve their ranking to like top 60 (so some chance of Pot C at the next World Cup), is being in a competitive tourney like the Gold Cup or new FIFA ASEAN Cup - and going deep in either of those tournies.
But hey a 64 team (16 pools of 4 teams) WC for 2030 is going to be examined by FIFA. So hey we maybe we fall into Pot C for 2030, by getting our ranking low 70s??
Then draw Thailand from Pot D in Malaga, so get that yearned for first World Cup win without improving our ranking too much over the next 4 years.
We were the bottom ranked team in a 48 team world cup, being in the 70s or 80s won't get us in Pot 3 for a 64 team world cup based.
Yes the above is true. With a 64 team WC, we would likely need to be ranked low 60s absolute minimum to squeak in as the 48th team in Pot 3, each of the 4 Pots having 16 teams, ie (16, 32, 48 & 64).
UEFA would likely have 22-23 teams qualify for a 64 team WC.
UEFA currently have 35 teams in the top 80 FIFA rankings, so they would probably alone have around 10-12 nations miss out to other countries around the world with a lower ranking.
A low 60s ranking could see a team squeeze into Pot 3.
Uzbekistan (52nd at the time of the draw I think) were the lowest-ranked nation in Pot 3 for this 48 team WC.
Basically without some sort of entry to the Gold Cup or similar with competitive matches, and then a deep run in such a tourney, the AWs are no chance of cracking Pot 3 at the 2030 WC. Though an expansion to 64 teams would certainly help in that regard.
I'm not in the habit of comparing us with Australia, but their rise began before their move to Asia - the change of confederation wasn't the key to improving their national team performances, as that had already started.
From what I recall, the biggest factor was getting more of their players in elite contexts. They went from a team in the late 1980s whose best players were professionals in Greece and Cyprus (and a couple of others in better leagues who basically never played for them, like Krncevic) to a team in the late 90s that had players in the Premier League, Ligue Un, Eredivisie, Bundesliga, Serie A etc, which then progressed further into the class of 2006.
On the back of that increase in player quality (and let's be honest, player profile) they were able to build better fixture schedules by using bases in Europe - it reduced cost as most of their players were there, and they could progress from fixtures against South Africa, Jamaica and Scotland to a regular diet of opponents like Hungary etc, with the odd high profile fixture (like when they beat England at Upton Park).
They key was not so much who the national team played against, as much as it was the quality of players in their national team. I don't have the answer of how we do that (in the absence of the AIS structure that they had in Canberra) but it we had a dozen top level pros, playing regularly in the top 5 leagues, then the other links in the chain become easier to connect (hopefully...). I honestly believe we have the raw materials in terms of talented footballers with athletic ability and the necessary mindsets - it's how that potential gets translated into elite professional players. Because with elite players, we become an international quality team, not an international team with a couple of good quality players.
The A League is massive for Aussie footy, and for us. We have a competition that gets looked at... but more importantly exposes good players to professional expectations and coaching from an earlier age.
Thw increased number of NZ out there playing for a living is in part because of this.
The key to improving NZ long term, and Aussie football long term, is arguably making the A League as strong as possible.
There was a strong debate in Australia 10 or so years ago, that ALM wasn’t as good developing young Oz talent as the old NSL. Less clubs, more visa players, lessening the opportunities for Aus kids
The 2006 golden generation Socceroos often mentioned as a reference. That cohort had all come through the old NSL system
ALM is now getting younger, and a team like the Jets last season barely had any imports.
Be interesting to see if the Socceroos now do get any stronger, and they get more players back in top 5 leagues like that 2006 team nearly all were (big number of EPL players)
As someone else mentioned the AIS was also given a lot of credit re that 2006 squad development
I've been listening to some US analyst on yt talking about the World Cup. And it's really amazing seeing their light bulb moments go on when they realise how hard it is to win a world cup.
Debunk a few myths like "if America's great athletics from other sports played football they would win it"
Light bulb moments like "it's actually easier to play their sports than soccer, because the NBA, NHL and NFL are full of stars from around the world. That population size does not matter because the likes of Russia, China, India, Nigeria have not come close to being great.
That being great like Brazil or the Netherlands and Belgium still does not matter. You have to be AWESOME to win.
My long point is, that is why we call seriously good teams "golden generations". It is seriously hard to build an Ozy 2006 squad and yes serious luck is involved aka a fit Harry Kewell.
Tickets acquired for both India games; apparently despite not having kids of my own I’ve been allocated a free child’s seat next to mine in the active zone, since the options were either that or “buy one, then another at half price”.
Seems a bit odd and a good way to end up with a half-empty bay, but if anyone needs a babysitter…
New Zealand’s performances at the FIFA Men’s World Cup have led to the All Whites dropping one place in the men’s world rankings.
The All Whites are now rated #86 of the 210 national teams ranked by the world body.
The ratings have been revised after the FIFA Men’s World Cup in which New Zealand drew with Iran, and lost to Egypt and Belgium in their group fixtures.
Under head coach Darren Bazeley, the New Zealand team have climbed 19 places since he took the role.
Simon B wrote: Tickets acquired for both India games; apparently despite not having kids of my own I’ve been allocated a free child’s seat next to mine in the active zone, since the options were either that or “buy one, then another at half price”.
Seems a bit odd and a good way to end up with a half-empty bay, but if anyone needs a babysitter…
I was looking at tickets in Chch and some of them came up with a message saying one or more seats may have a restricted view which I found really odd given this is supposed to be an amazing new stadium. How could there be a restricted view? These were seats in the upper tier.
coochiee wrote: Yeah would be a great little comp to get an invite for, and potentially give the FIFA ranking a boost.
Tournament Window: 21 September – 6 October 2026 (FIFA international window) Format Overview (Proposed) 14 teams total Division 1: 8 teams (2 groups of 4) Division 2: 6 teams (2 groups of 3) image.png458.39 KB
Is there the chance we are too good for it (for them to invite us)? I can't imagine many much higher in the rankings. Not our choice but shows the opportunities for the lower ranked teams in Oceania and Asia to play eachother, and the stronger teams.
Supporting the supporters and love an away day anywhere in the world. Kiwis Can Fly!
Maybe we promise to not select many of our better players?
Or maybe contra to that, the organisers would love a Chris Wood, Libby etc to turn up in Malaysia to give the tourney some profile and boost crowds?
Note it’s a new comp organised more by FIFA than ASEAN. I understand the idea is to try boost the FIFA rankings of the participating nations with this competitive tourney, many of whom like yes India failed to qualify for next year’s Asian Cup. So there must be some reasonable ranking points? on offer to the winners??
about 7 hours ago· edited about 7 hours ago· History
Yeah got a heads up from someone at NZF, the AWs already have some games locked in for the Sept-Oct window. Just not announced yet.
From the tone of the message NZF might have preferred this tourney with potential ranking points on offer, but too late in the piece now.
And semantics, but the above tourney is the FIFA ASEAN Cup (Sept-Oct), a new comp. The ASEAN Championship(with many of the same nations) starts on Friday, and finishes mid August.
