The story of our tournament was three outstanding halves of football proceeded by three dismal halves of football. Trying to force contexts into a flurry of friendlies clearly doesnt cut the mustard. For the most part the guys were completley overawed by the situations and circumstances they found themselves in throughout the tournament. There's a mental fragility that looms large over the entire squad, guided by coaching staff that froze without a plan B when things weren't going their way and that would rather be mates with the players than make the tough calls.
You can hope against hope at the time, which we all did, that a magic wand would wave fix all our persistent weaknesses but the reality is a 2 nil loss at home to Finalnd two months out and a 4 nil loss to Haiti 2 weeks out were the indicators we had run out of time to reach the cohesion necessary to meet the standard required for a tournament like this.
Going into the next cycle with a ten million dollar windfall it's clear it would behoove NZF to look outside the old boys club coaching wise. Maybe they can increase the amount they are willing to offer as a salary? They also should seriously consider reaching out beyond the constraints of OFC for competitive football thats going to battle harden these guys and get rid of the lack of mental toughness and match awareness that plagues this inexperienced side. Tomgue in cheek, but the rest should all be pooled into the domestic clubs to subsidise the development of a genuine right back talent.
As far as the players go it wasn't all doom and gloom. From Austrian pub leagues to three goals at the world cup. Eli Just. What a bloody hero. We knew he was decent but I'm not sure many of us expected this sort of output when it came time for the big dance.
Finn Surman and Marko Stamenic also boosted their stocks and confirmed to a larger audience what we've always thought about them.
While Cacace was skilled enough to build into the tournament as it went on despite his lack of match fitness, the same can't be said for Sarpreet and Boxall also coming in from injury. A real shame as with both those guys running at 100% and of course Matt Garbett, there's enough ex factor there to put a third goal past Iran or be able to competently chase the game after going down against Egypt but sadly it wasn't to be.
Between the posts, we're probably better to invest in the abudence of young goalkeeping talent we have establishing themselves in Europe. Alex Paulsen for the no.1 slot going forward. 10 goals shipped in three games. While not at fault for all of them on the other hand its not like Crocombe countered those ten goals shipped with some outrageous saves of note.
I hope we don't put the brakes on the mens high performance programme from here and are straight back into it, in the September window. Bring on 2030!
You can hope against hope at the time, which we all did, that a magic wand would wave fix all our persistent weaknesses but the reality is a 2 nil loss at home to Finalnd two months out and a 4 nil loss to Haiti 2 weeks out were the indicators we had run out of time to reach the cohesion necessary to meet the standard required for a tournament like this.
Going into the next cycle with a ten million dollar windfall it's clear it would behoove NZF to look outside the old boys club coaching wise. Maybe they can increase the amount they are willing to offer as a salary? They also should seriously consider reaching out beyond the constraints of OFC for competitive football thats going to battle harden these guys and get rid of the lack of mental toughness and match awareness that plagues this inexperienced side. Tomgue in cheek, but the rest should all be pooled into the domestic clubs to subsidise the development of a genuine right back talent.
As far as the players go it wasn't all doom and gloom. From Austrian pub leagues to three goals at the world cup. Eli Just. What a bloody hero. We knew he was decent but I'm not sure many of us expected this sort of output when it came time for the big dance.
Finn Surman and Marko Stamenic also boosted their stocks and confirmed to a larger audience what we've always thought about them.
While Cacace was skilled enough to build into the tournament as it went on despite his lack of match fitness, the same can't be said for Sarpreet and Boxall also coming in from injury. A real shame as with both those guys running at 100% and of course Matt Garbett, there's enough ex factor there to put a third goal past Iran or be able to competently chase the game after going down against Egypt but sadly it wasn't to be.
Between the posts, we're probably better to invest in the abudence of young goalkeeping talent we have establishing themselves in Europe. Alex Paulsen for the no.1 slot going forward. 10 goals shipped in three games. While not at fault for all of them on the other hand its not like Crocombe countered those ten goals shipped with some outrageous saves of note.
I hope we don't put the brakes on the mens high performance programme from here and are straight back into it, in the September window. Bring on 2030!