ananaveragestemauaustin111brbrookemBullion+6Jamdogg, Jazzy Jeff, martinb, PKB, Rock Hopper, YoungHeartHM
2 days ago
Getting to the highlights. Couldn’t be faffed with a VPN too. Last had it to watch the Olympics looong ago.
The last two goals were poor- the 3rd had one guy with a free header that he shouldn’t had. The 4th just a superbly placed shot with someone not shut down by the defense.
I feel like we created a lot, but shot close to the keeper or over the top. They took their chances better than us.
Their first was pure brilliance in movement and finish. Randall can do that but not lately. Kosta and Wood have. Maybe Old.
I felt like Boxall was holding off on the second goal. But that was weak defensively too. I don’t think there’ll be so much space in front of the defenders with Thomas or Bell.
I wonder when we are training too. Training at 10am on a clear sunny day is no preparation for playing in a humid cauldron at 7pm at night.
Long story short, I don’t think we’ve learned anything. We need more prep against a team around this level with our top team, rather than marquee prep against England.
“When you look at the game, possession was fairly even and chances fairly even but Haiti were very clinical and very ruthless in those moments,” coach Darren Bazeley said after the game.
“It’s a real harsh lesson for us, especially with tough games coming up. We’ve got England coming up and then the World Cup games coming up. The boys in the changing room are very disappointed.
Christ - I expected Bazeley to come out with some sort of spin but even this is bad for him. Maybe the first half at a stretch but did he watch the second half?
Castar wrote: By logic, does this mean Paulsen starts ahead of Crocs in goal? Not that our goalkeeping was the main issue for the entirety of that game.
Also is it too late to send OPP, Stanger and Tuiloma to America as well.
Two players playing in the top league in that country, two big strong defenders and one midfielder with recent do or die campaign experience to get promoted? What ever for?
A game against England for Braintree and 250k to say goodbae please!
Castar wrote: By logic, does this mean Paulsen starts ahead of Crocs in goal? Not that our goalkeeping was the main issue for the entirety of that game.
Also is it too late to send OPP, Stanger and Tuiloma to America as well.
After the Chile game I would have said 100% Paulsen. Now I really have no idea. AP seems down on confidence after his time in Poland.
Someone else said it, and it seems crazy to think it, but right now is Woud our most in form/high on confidence keeper?! Certainly most in form shot stopper.
AucklandPhoenix wrote: The only positive I could take from that game is we pressed ok for around 20 minutes in the first half.
Haiti simply parked the bus tactically for that period and defended their box rather well. Yes we pressed well but overall we were ineffective against a well organised nimble team. My guess is the Iran game will be played by the opposition a bit slower and less acrobatically than this one was, so whatever Bazeley learns from this game should hopefully profit us for the Iran game. I do not expect to learn much from the England game (unlike this one), but it will be useful for trying out on-the-field combinations.
It’s hard to know if selections should be made on the form of last month or of the season.
But who’s in form for us, apart from Woud?
Should Waine start on the left? McCowatt?
The question of who are the dangerous players for us currently is difficult to answer. Perhaps only Wood.
It should be Wood, Randall, Just, Waine, Old, Cacace, De Vries, Payne, Singh, Stamenic, Bell and Boxall. McCowatt has a pair of shooting boots he rarely brings to the national team!
maynardf wrote: We are clearly saving our good defending and good attacker for the World Cup proper
I saw this. Mohammed Ali did this. Rope a dope. Sure that’s it.
4-0 loss, likely similar or worse scoreline against England, lowest ranked team at the big dance, player selected from the English 6th tier, country of only 5M people famous for it's rugby team. Haiti's Duckens Nazon who plays for Esteghlal F.C. in the Iranian league telling everyone we are useless.
Hopefully the Iranians rock up in LA thinking they don't have to try that hard to get 3 pts.
Very disappointed with our fullbacks. Payne was wrong side. De Vries and Boxall didn't defend. De Vries allowed that juicy cross to be put in. Did Surman think Elliot had the man behind him, or that maybe Croc would come grab the cross? No-one closed down the last shot and there was a midfielder nearby who should have. I actually thought the midfield in the first half did well. Woodsy could have really started off his Cup campaign with champagne if his bicycle kick hadn't been kept out.
martinb wrote: Two in the midfield doesn’t work huh…or perhaps little works without Bell?
I think this game cements Baze’s plans of a conservative Bell-Stamenic-Thomas trio
Also we were so so much better with Libby out there. Nuts to whoever suggested he shouldn’t start.
Old’s pace also needed if just as a defensive sub when our players tire and it starts to open up
Sadly FDV’s great crossing is not enough to mitigate the other huge problems he has at this level
It ain’t all lost just yet. We could still nick a 1-1 or even 1-0 against Iran or Egypt
More then happy to admit I was wrong and I’ll put my hand up to Libby not starting, but I sure as hell wasn’t suggesting FDV should, glad Libby did well and hopefully now Baze realises FDV shouldn’t be on the field again and has Old (who I had in my starting line up) is his back up.
Always had a problem with Baze decision to go 4-3-3 instead of 4-2-3-1 or 3-5-1 from the outset. It's tournament football not League football. Defense is king and yes, the players are there to play attractive football. So much space in that midfield.
Agree Paulsen shouldn't start.
Now I really question NZF wisdom picking England as the last friendly before the tournament. Usually teams pick a "beatable team" to go in with a positive mentality. Get ready for a "Dunkirk spin" from the press.
Maybe Whitcoulls can send Baze a "How to...." book.
Castar wrote: By logic, does this mean Paulsen starts ahead of Crocs in goal? Not that our goalkeeping was the main issue for the entirety of that game.
Also is it too late to send OPP, Stanger and Tuiloma to America as well.
Always had a problem with Baze decision to go 4-3-3 instead of 4-2-3-1 or 3-5-1 from the outset. It's tournament football not League football. Defense is king and yes, the players are there to play attractive football. So much space in that midfield.
Agree Paulsen shouldn't start.
Now I really question NZF wisdom picking England as the last friendly before the tournament. Usually teams pick a "beatable team" to go in with a positive mentality. Get ready for a "Dunkirk spin" from the press.
Maybe Whitcoulls can send Baze a "How to...." book.
I'm pretty sure we do in fact set up in a 4-2-3-1, which is why a lot of people wanted to see all of Thomas, Stamenic & Bell together so it looked more like a 4-3-3, which to me is less ambitious than a 4-2-3-1.
maynardf wrote: We are clearly saving our good defending and good attacker for the World Cup proper
I saw this. Mohammed Ali did this. Rope a dope. Sure that’s it.
Ha, thats what I was thinking. Bazely masterpiecec with rope a dope before the Iran game.....Iran will certainly be rubbing there hands seeing that perfromance from us. I wonder do we just have too many players not match fit at the moment. Really unfortunate timing.
Just a little more rope, we got them juuust where we wanted them lol
Correct, but they look like a 4-3-3 when in transition, then get in trouble when they lose the ball. Marko needs to be a little more rigid and stay to support Bell/Rufer in that privet. I remember Brazil's Dunga (WC 2010) not allowing his pivot to move across the half way line. Just be more compact and give the width to the opponents to cross all day.
AW cannot concede 1st in that Iran game. But in the mean time I will pass by and get some late night reading material...
The thing that's really proving hard to reconcile as a fan is for all our faults we've been assured come world cup time "She'll be right." All these persistent niggles will be worked on and ironed out. The Finland game should have been alarm bells suggesting "Hey we're cutting this real close, lads." But, alas the warning signs were plastered over by a red-card aided victory over Chile. We just don't seem to be able to come out of the blocks firing any window, and it's the hopeless inconsistency that's really stopping a team that has the highest potential of any previous All Whites side from reaching that potential. You don't know what All Whites side you're going to get on the field on game day, but you can be assured more often than not it's one that has some strange mental block rendering it unable to play to the best sum of it's parts. It wouldn't surprise me if despite all evidence suggesting we are on a hiding to nothing against England, we actually come out and toil away to a spirited 2-1 loss. But that in itself is a problem. We are building up a frustrating collection of false dawn's and day late a buck short efforts.
We're coming to the pointy end of the world cup cycle. Four years since Costa-Rica and it's plain to see somehow the squad cohesion and understanding of our strengths and weaknesses as a squad still isn't there. It's miles off. We're two weeks from kicking off against Iran and you get the impression that you and I's best stab in the dark at what the most well rounded All Whites starting XI would look like is just as good as the actual coaching staff's idea. They still don't seem to know.
Just want to clarify after I was calling out Surman earlier. Payne was more at fault for the first goal but Surman was definitely most at fault for the next two.
8/10 times Surman has a much better game and none of those first 3 goals happen (rescuing the situation after Payne's blunder was very much still possible).
Unfortunately it seems Payne has a blunder like that in him more games than not these days.
Despite the fact that it was a warm up game. the conditions and game time for all players – that was just horrible football.
This team is lacking an identity; not good enough in terms on the ball/positions ability to play a possession-based style and not effective to play a counter attacking transition-based style.
There is a complete lack of leadership from the HC and no innovation- just same old again (even the post-match interviews) after all these years with the same players- based on loyalty/politics instead of ability/form.
But don’t be surprised as you get what you appointed- as one of the posts said earlier- the game moved on but the HC and AC are stuck in the past. —and so is the government body.
Goal 1 - Payne was too tight, and too much on his opponents right shoulder, making it to easy for the attacker to role him.
Goal 2 - Boxall too far away from his man. An issue for him playing on the left hand side, not his usual right perhaps. The slight positional change catching him out.
Goal 3 - Surman, not sure what he was doing positionally there. Cromcomb also nowhere to be seen, would expect a keeper to own his box better.
Goal 4 - Bayliss, too slow to shut down the space.
Other things I noticed. Rufer was too static as an option, missed Bells movement. Just, was very poor, over hit passes, heavy touch.
Randall made some nice runs, got some shots off, wasn't his best performance, but he made things happen.
Huge , huge wakeup call for everyone. One thing about AW sides over the years is that they we always hard to break down. It wasnt about parking the bus. It was about being compact, well organised and disciplined. The Haiti game was a defensive disaster. Probably one of the worst AW defensive displays i can remember. A rock solid defense should be our minimum. Baze has got lots of work. If we are not 100% defensively switched on then then we are in deep deep shiite. We also have way too many players who have played very little football recently. This is the WC. The speed and intensity is at another level. You shouldnt be trying to get players match fit less than a fortnight from a WC opener. Its too late. I dont think the England game is a good idea. We wont learn anything other than picking the ball out of the back of the net. Hind sight is a great thing but as Coochie said a longer buildup with warmup matches against local opposition would have been better.
MetalLegNZ wrote: Poor game, made worse by our own mistakes.
Goal 1 - Payne was too tight, and too much on his opponents right shoulder, making it to easy for the attacker to role him.
Goal 2 - Boxall too far away from his man. An issue for him playing on the left hand side, not his usual right perhaps. The slight positional change catching him out.
Goal 3 - Surman, not sure what he was doing positionally there. Cromcomb also nowhere to be seen, would expect a keeper to own his box better.
Goal 4 - Bayliss, too slow to shut down the space.
Other things I noticed. Rufer was too static as an option, missed Bells movement. Just, was very poor, over hit passes, heavy touch.
Randall made some nice runs, got some shots off, wasn't his best performance, but he made things happen.
1st goal looks like Just misses the 1st tackle/block all 3 of Just (pretty sure it was him) Payne and Surman needed to do better. 2nd goal- Boxy had a guy he was watching right in front of him who made the pass to the runner going between boxy and FDV should of been but he was marking space and failed to get back in time, Boxy should of done better but FDV has responsibility is well 3rd goal- Poor marking by FDV again allowed the cross to easily get put into the box where it should of been dealt with 4th goal- yup you guessed it FDV not able to get to his guy to prevent the cross into the middle to begin with
MetalLegNZ wrote: Poor game, made worse by our own mistakes.
Goal 1 - Payne was too tight, and too much on his opponents right shoulder, making it to easy for the attacker to role him.
Goal 2 - Boxall too far away from his man. An issue for him playing on the left hand side, not his usual right perhaps. The slight positional change catching him out.
Goal 3 - Surman, not sure what he was doing positionally there. Cromcomb also nowhere to be seen, would expect a keeper to own his box better.
Goal 4 - Bayliss, too slow to shut down the space.
Other things I noticed. Rufer was too static as an option, missed Bells movement. Just, was very poor, over hit passes, heavy touch.
Randall made some nice runs, got some shots off, wasn't his best performance, but he made things happen.
I'd add that de Vries was incredibly passive in the leadup to the third goal.
For the second goal, Boxall felt like he had to step up to the ball carrier because Surman was doing absolutely nothing. I think if Surman is doing what he should be in that moment then Boxall doesn't get caught out like that.
Haiti were probably a lousy match up for us. Better than their ranking. Quick and athletic.
Negated our press. Smashed us on the counter. Used our own expectations of being competitive against us.
But the D was full of individual and collective problems. Maybe guys playing too much for a place than as a team. But, whatever, they've been better and sure will need to be.
I think the only defender who came out of that game with any credit was Libby. In fact in his 45 mins he was probably the AWs best player full stop. Him & Randall combining well down the left on occassions.
The positive is we are better than this defensively. Surman & Boxy starting together hopefully won't play this badly together again. Bad individual errors you can't blame Baze for that. Bell in front of the CBs will help immensely. A shame neither of the keepers are in commanding form, aka Paston in 2010. A loud confident GK feeds through to the defenders in front of them.
Be interesting against England if Rufer stays in there alongside Bell, with Stamenic further forward. That trio went okay against the USA in 2024. Or if it's just Bell in for Roofs and Singh keeps his spot.
Gut feel with Sarpreet is it takes him several games to get up to game speed/sharpness, and prove effective. The AWs don't have that luxury. He was bang average in his sole Nix start back in Feb, post Serbia, after similarily months out not playing.
Libby on the other hand a strong 45 mins, after even longer out on the sidelines. Everyone is different.
Last option for Bazeley to mull over is going to a back 3/5, with Bindon coming in effectively for Singh. Hopefully he doesn't, as that would seem a short term attempted fix, to try prevent an English scoring blitz. Not the best formation for the Iran match. I think a Bell-Stamenic-Thomas trio is definitely now the preferred option for WC game one. Bell-Rufer-Stamenic might be the best audition for that with Thomas out.
Ew, just watched the highlights. That's seriously concerning... At 4:0 you're not even in the game, and that's against a 3rd/4th tier team... Could be a disastrous WC
Joey Johns wrote: Waited 16 years for this...atleast in 2010 the team midfield/attack was wank but could defend
That attack scored more goals then this lot. Smeltz, Rory and Killen better overall then Wood, Waine and Barbs.
Wood was part of the 2010 squad and very nearly scored against Italy, the ball just trickling past the goalpost from an acute angle. That is how close we were then.
Bazeley has selection questions he needs to settle on that he won't have got answers to on a night where no-one stood out, but where there was also a clear drop-off from the starting XI to the XI that had replaced them wholesale by the final whistle. Those changes that were signalled in advance as part of an effort to get minutes in everyone's legs in case they are needed in the weeks to come, and an effort to ease some players up to 90-minute workloads.
After such a shellacking, it now seems clear around a quarter of the squad probably won't be seen on the field again unless injuries strike, apart from potentially in the closing stages against England, if there isn't a famous result still there to be played for – a prospect that looked incredibly faint, if not utterly laughable, at the final whistle against Haiti.
That there were no injuries, at a time when other teams have had players suffer heartbreaking blows, was the only silver lining on a night that left the team chastened from captain Chris Wood on down.
"It's not what we came here for," he said after his record-breaking 89th cap was marked with a result he won't want to remember. "We're nowhere near where we wanted to be. We've got a lot of work to do in a short space of time.
"It's time for us to show our character and bounce back," Wood added. "It's disappointing. There's no getting away from it. We weren't good enough on the night."
.........
........Going from the high of putting four goals against 10-man Chile at Eden Park in March to this low will have been quite the whiplash for a group of players who have lost more than they have won against teams outside Oceania, but also haven't been second best to such an extent for almost two years, since their 3-0 loss to Mexico in Los Angeles in September 2024.
"It's not nice," Bazeley said. "I don't think it was something we expected. We've had a pretty good run of performances and results over the last few years and we came with the intention to really be building towards the World Cup, so this is not the result we wanted.
"We have to give credit to Haiti. I thought they played very well and they were very ruthless and clinical in certain moments of the game. They're a very athletic team, they counter attack and they're exciting."
As for his charges, all but two of whom – Wood and Tommy Smith, who didn't play – are at their first World Cup and won't have been part of anything on the scale of it before: "They're down. They're disappointed. Nobody likes losing. They're professional players. 4-0 is a bad scoreline for us.
"The boys are down. We need to pick them up. We've got some tough games coming. Maybe this is a really good lesson for us, really early in this campaign, that we're going to need to be better and going to need to be really good in every moment of the game."
Bazeley isn't the only person who will have a part to play in the turnaround that's now required of this team, who would have been hoping to kickstart their North American campaign with a win over an opponent only ranked two places higher than them by FIFA (83rd to 85th). England, 81 places higher in fourth, now lie in wait.
But he sounded up for the challenge as he left for the team bus.
"We're at the biggest tournament in the world and we've got England coming up in four days, but on our day. when everyone performs to their best, we're a good team. We haven't shown that tonight and that's disappointing. We'll recover, we'll get ourselves back and we'll go again."
The All Whites are set to bus northwest across Florida to Tampa on Wednesday local time, then will have two days of training before facing England on Saturday afternoon (kickoff 8am Sunday NZ time).
As posted by Yakcall in the WC 2026 thread. Nations with players born in another country. Haiti with 17 of their 26 man squad born elsewhere (mostly France). During the national anthems I saw a few of their players not singing at all. Didn't affect the way they played for their nation!
Out of the 26 players in the Curaçao squad,, 25 were born in the Netherlands!
Us with 8 born overseas, and really only Smith & Bayliss seem sort of 'non Kiwi raised'. All very different to 1982. image.png2.71 MB
maynardf wrote: We are clearly saving our good defending and good attacker for the World Cup proper
I saw this. Mohammed Ali did this. Rope a dope. Sure that’s it.
4-0 loss, likely similar or worse scoreline against England, lowest ranked team at the big dance, player selected from the English 6th tier, country of only 5M people famous for it's rugby team. Haiti's Duckens Nazon who plays for Esteghlal F.C. in the Iranian league telling everyone we are useless.
Hopefully the Iranians rock up in LA thinking they don't have to try that hard to get 3 pts.
Big problem we have is that the Iraninan's want to make a point after Trumps Oil war. Not good for us at all.
Supporter of the world's best football teams: Waikato..., Kingz FC, NZ Knights, The Nix, The Argyle & of course the All Whites
As it’s been said our CBs (Boxy, Bindon, Surman) are better then that, and having Bell or Thomas on (preferably both) would strengthen that CM, watching the Roof I felt like he was given instructions of “This is your area, stay in it” it however does make me again question why OPP was left out, Singh isn’t up to speed and as Coochiee rightly said he usually takes 3-4 games to get there which is a luxary we don’t have. Also carrying the cultural architect round on there shoulders, by the end of game 2 we might need to make multiple CB changes so having Stagner would have made much more sense coming on with Bindon….. oh well I’m sure Baze knows what he’s doing…… right?
Yes, the disappointment rings true a day later. I didnt really see this coming. Ok i should have been concerned about the Finland no show, or how we struggled to score against New Caledonia in the playoff and how many key players like Singh, Boxhall, FDV etc etc had hardly played for ages. But i got caught up in the WC hype and the Chile game. The truth is we appear to be seriously underprepared. Only 2 warmup games compared to 4 in 2010. The 2010 team was a tightly drilled machine for their first WC match. Hope is not lost. If we get our first 11 settled we might give Iran a contest. But it appears there are still questions over starting keepers, CBs, midfielders and LW. We will also have to see how players like Libby and Boxhall pull up after their first hit out for ages. Plus the status of injured Bell, Old, Thomas etc
That was a disgusting second half performance. I’m struggling to think of a worse half by the All Whites.
I said the other day that with only two warm up games I wouldn’t make second half subs until the 70th minute. But no, we fuck around like a group of under eights and give everyone a go apart from the cultural architect.
I don’t expect the All Whites to match the skill level of their competitors at this cup. But what I don’t expect is an All White side who doesn’t muck in and compete physically trying to overcome and dominate their more skilful opponents.
This country is all about the big lump of a centre back who can kick the star centre forward of the park.
Now being a friendly game and the fact no one wants to get injured, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.
But the cultural architect need to be teaching and instructing his defenders and midfielders to kick lumps of the Iranians.
If Baz won’t do it, replace him now and send Corica.
