All Whites vs Malaysia | Mon 14th Oct | 7:00pm | North Harbour Stadium

Looking at Howieson you wonder if he’s going to need a season to get up to speed in the A league. 

Unfair to compare to the young guys and Rufer coming off a PB season, but he’s looked fine, be a little slower and more tentative than the others. Be interesting to see how he goes this season. 

Great goal from Rogerson!

Geez, sorry Justy, but that’s the best finish of the window! Looking forward to seeing that in the A league. 

What a strike!

Well that was a very enjoyable game, pretty pretty pretty good. 

Black armbands and celebrations pointing to the sky. Who for?

Malaysia certainly looked nifty on the counter. They could move the ball well and were a quick team. You could definitely see them being a much tougher opponent at home! 

Good on ya if you got out to see it tonight.

Pleasing to see that even on an off night (in terms of finishing) the team got a thumping result. Crossing a bit and worrying difficulty for multiple games in a row now.

Pleasing to see that even on an off night (in terms of finishing) the team got a thumping result. Crossing a bit and worrying difficulty for multiple games in a row now.

God dammit, finally able to get back on here after it wouldn't load for me all day. 😮‍💨

Very good result that could have easily been 6 or 7 on another night - The Malaysians looked gassed in that final 15-20 minutes...

Great to finally see us put a team to the sword and notch a few goals no less as well. Some very well taken goals at that too. 

On to Vanuatu & Samoa in November!

martinb

Geez I feel lucky I started watching watching later. The stuff I’ve seen has been good! 

Plus emphasizes we need Garbett centrally. Classy composed finish.
Roux seems like a natural athlete. 

To be fair we were pretty good first half - dominated, created heaps, basically did everything except score.

Great performance

From that, Roux offers more than Payne for me.

Nice to play a team we were better than, that didn't park the bus.  

Frustrating first half but we were creating plenty and they had nothing on us. Goals were always coming. Good to see a mix of players get on the scoresheet, and great seeing some creativity in the absence of Singh.

The main negative is the result makes Bazeley look good and I’d like him gone.

Malaysia aren’t a great side, but like us they’re better than their rankings would suggest.

I feel like Asia has a top 6-8 or so countries who we’d consistently get played off the park against. Below that there’s a number of countries where we could get a result but as easily it could go against us. While the majority of the confederation is quite poor.  I’d like to think results against Malaysia and China (mid to lower skilled teams) gives NZ Football confidence that we actually could be at least competitive taking the Asian route. 

Only just managed to get back on here after being shown a forbidden message all day. 

When we had all those chances in the first half but couldn't score, I was worried that this was going to be another long night of frustration. But after we finally broke the deadlock through Just in the second half, we just kept on going to easily put the game to rest.

Malaysia did look dangerous on the counter attack though and it was annoying how many of those came off the back of our corners, got pretty nervy when Roux slipped during one of them.

Otherwise, a solid win against a non-Oceania side since China, easily our biggest win over Malaysia, and congratulations to Rogerson on getting just his second AWs goal with a nice strike.

Crowd was 8,513 according the the NZ Herald.

It was good to see us be the dominant team AND play on a decent surface at the same time. Usually whenever we play lower ranked teams we are in the islands on bumpy, dry pitches - So a nice change there, and better looking football today because of it.

Was at the game, can corroborate the 8513 figure. Good for a rainy Monday night. 

Malaysia weren't up to much so hard to read too much into that but great to see us put them to the sword and score some good goals. A shame they weren't able to offer any genuine resistance though, we won't be getting any of that until at least June now. 

loyalgunner

Frustrating first half but we were creating plenty and they had nothing on us. Goals were always coming. Good to see a mix of players get on the scoresheet, and great seeing some creativity in the absence of Singh.

The main negative is the result makes Bazeley look good and I’d like him gone.

Malaysia aren’t a great side, but like us they’re better than their rankings would suggest.

I feel like Asia has a top 6-8 or so countries who we’d consistently get played off the park against. Below that there’s a number of countries where we could get a result but as easily it could go against us. While the majority of the confederation is quite poor.  I’d like to think results against Malaysia and China (mid to lower skilled teams) gives NZ Football confidence that we actually could be at least competitive taking the Asian route. 

I'm sure NZF know the AWs would currently be competitive in AFC (probably a top 10 team). But in OFC, qualification and a $16.5M payday is a sure thing. Try our luck in AFC, and that huge chunk of critical money becomes a lottery. 

A cash strapped body like NZF can do alot of good with say 60% of $16.5M (players 40%). Much as we would all like to see the likes of Saudi, Japan, Socceroos playing competitive high stakes regular games against the AWs - at the moment it makes zero financial sense for the health of NZ football.

Difficult watch on a patchy FIFA+ stream, but I thought Roux was the major positive. He certainly offers more around the box in an attacking sense than Payne. Lots of good decisions and clever passes. But it was not a game that tested him at all defensively, which is a major caveat.

The true surface and cooler weather helped the AWs to play more stylishly & improved, than against Tahiti. That starting 11 sans Waine for Wood, I can see beating Vanuatu by 7-8 goals in the Tron. Football is now a 100 min game, and super fit professionals can just run over tiring part timers late on, blowing out scorelines. Samoa will be hoping Bazeley shows some mercy with a totally 2nd string lineup against them, but I can still see a 10+ goal romp.

Not clinical enough in the first half, but overall a promising performance, and good for the confidence - as was the USA result in a different sense. Will not really be much to learn from the Nov and March windows, but that's being in OFC, and thankfully qualification will be done & dusted in a very short timeframe. So plenty of tougher games to better assess where this team is at from June next year, onwards to WC 2026.

Win worth any ranking points? Rogerson showed why he has been picked the last 2 windows.

Edit - and was it the Niche Cache's very own Nick Robinson who was comments man? I slowly warmed to him as the game went on. Like his articles some nice whimsical comments

Great support here at North Harbour Stadium! 🇳🇿🖤 pic.twitter.com/hoQvMXMi8m

— New Zealand Football 🇳🇿 (@NZ_Football) October 14, 2024

Head coach Darren Bazeley’s thoughts on tonight’s dominant 4-0 win over Malaysia 🇳🇿 pic.twitter.com/Cv38cdfUDa

— New Zealand Football 🇳🇿 (@NZ_Football) October 14, 2024

Roux is better at RB then Payne for me and should start there in November. Payne is handy due to his versatility but should be a bench player like he was tonight.

I wish we'd play Waine and Wood up front together. I think that combination would score a few. I think had Kosta and Wood been on the park with Ben in the first half, we would have scored.

I hope that's the last time Smith gets called up unless he has a blinder at AFC. Three games without playing for the AWs even though he's been in the squad.

While Rogerson scored a cracker of a goal, I do not feel him or Howieson should be back in a full AW squad unless they start week-in-week out at AFC playing well, there are better choices out there.

As an out and out winger who is better than Rogerson? He’s had one outing back in the AWs and gone that. 

I feel with Singh/Garbett/Bell there’s gunna be some overlap in where they wanna be playing. None of them should ideally be providing width. 

That leaves Just and Rogerson as the two genuine wide players? 

He has a very interesting upright running style Rojerson..

Be interested to see how he goes out wide and his true pace this year. 

Liked Roux and how he could pass short and link well. Definitely an upgrade going forward over Payne. 

Expected win, dominated in the first half but couldn't land a cross to Waine to save ourselves. It wasn't until the second half that we seemed to figure out running the ball to the top of the box was gonna be the way to break the apart and create space for the attack - Libby with two brilliant runs and low crosses from the top of the box led to two nice goals. Nice to see four separate scorers, Rogerson's was brilliant - looked like he was surprised it went in. Hopefully he can get into the space to score a few more in the Aleague. midfield operated well today, controlled the pace of the game and distributed well - Rufer the key to this! I'm wondering how Singh fits into this team when he is fit. Stamenic, Garbett and Rufer are all playing well and seem to be clicking.
On to Vanawatu and Samoa!!!

Much better games from Stamenic and Garbett last night. Cacace really made an impact with his running.

I, unlike many here, thought we improved remarkedly once Payne came in for Roux. Thought it made our right side a lot stronger from both an attacking and defending persepctive... maybe it was just me!

maynardf

I, unlike many here, thought we improved remarkedly once Payne came in for Roux. Thought it made our right side a lot stronger from both an attacking and defending persepctive... maybe it was just me!

Two very different players, Roux was good on attack and did the job required of him in defence. Payne made some very good runs late in the piece and tracked back well when they countered.

I htought Payne had a great cameo - amazing what a bit of competition for your spot does for a player.

I thought we were unlucky not to be up at half time, Justs diving header was goal bound, but found a defender covering the goal etc. half a meter either side of him, its a goal.

Generally I though we moved the ball well, but I also think we were maybe a little gun shy as well, particularly when central around the 18 yard box. A couple of times I thought we could of had a ping, as opposed to looking to play through them with no space in behind.

I am also becoming a really big fan of Rufer's. He's happy to give away a foul when needed and seems to be very calm on the ball when under pressure. He seems to really know his game at the moment.

I'm not a fan of Beazley, but I do think some of the grief he gets is unfair. This was a good result, and he should get some credit for it.

Tactics seems to be the biggest issue with the team at the moment, which is a Bazeley issue for mine. Cler in the most recent games. First half we've tried to cross the ball into the box as the only mode of attack! No other options taken, same cross from the full back which is easy to defend once you know what is coming - besides the fact that our crossing has been woeful. Few tweaks at half time and a change in the attack mode and we score. Second half last night, crossing is horrid, second half the approach changes and we run the ball and the attack drifts slightly more central and the low pass comes from the top of the box instead of the side line and we find the central man and score!

The question I have is, if this is intentional from Bazeley, or does he just not have any other plans?

This obviously isn't that important, but it was cool last night that when Wood scored he showed the boys how to celebrate with a home crowd. Quite often when NZ plays at home the vast majority of the crowd is on one side of the stadium, and Just is one of many I have seen when watching the All Whites live to score and then run away from the crowd to the other side of the field and celebrate there. It's a bit annoying. One that sticks in my mind is Smith scoring a somewhat important winner at Forsyth Barr and sprinting away to celebrate in front of the entirely empty north stand. Spoiled a great moment. You'd think that the All Whites are mostly shy or autistic or something the way they appear to be frightened of their own fans. 

Three News covered the match, One News couldn't be bothered.

Seems like we are all so shocked that we won 4-0 against a team not from Oceania that nobody has had much to say since.

My thoughts after the window are:
- It is good that Roux is in the mix again, we needed another solid RB option. I am comfortable enough going into the World Cup with Payne & Roux (though I have a suspicion that Sheridan just might overtake one of them by then)
- Great that Just is finally showing some end product in white, after having generally looked the part for a while now without having provided much in the way of killer passes or goals. But it's a shame he has found himself in the Austrian second division. I wish players like him/Singh/McGarry would come back to the A-League rather than waste their careers away at bad levels/not playing just because they're in "Europe"
- Great that Rufer has established himself as a national team regular now. Quite recently he wasn't picked at all for a squad and only made it as a late injury replacement, which was criminal
- Kosta finally impressed me in a white shirt, has been pretty awful for the All Whites for a long time. A good omen for the Nix's season and who knows, maybe he can make it to '26 after all?

I don't think there is going to be enough time between now and the next window for many players not in the squad to impress enough to get a call-up, especially with the likes of Surman, McCowatt, Singh & Bell to all hopefully come back in. And the next window is not going to test us at all. So it won't be until March next year that we learn much more about the team. Here's hoping a few players like Rojas, De Vries, Hughes, Howieson, Sheridan, Randall & Rogerson are all making a real splash in the A-League by then to make the naming of that March squad really interesting. 

Kosta seemed to be the one I knew from the bad ol days- immense talent and skill.  However, turns a cross into a shot, got very lucky and can’t get any other shots on target! 
He’s best running in behind the defense and sadly might not be quick enough to do that anymore at an international level for all he’s been phenomenal for the Nix.

Handy, but I’m fifty-fifty on him to the WC given he provides a wealth of experience and most of that of winning, but we do have a bunch of players in Garbett, Old, Just, McCowatt, Rogerson, Waine, Greive, Mata, and Singh wanting that spot. On the other hand he’s been the fittest and most in form of any apart from Old and Garbett in the last year. If he was always last seasn’s Nix Kosta in a white shirt there’s no question.

martinb

Kosta seemed to be the one I knew from the bad ol days- immense talent and skill.  However, turns a cross into a shot, got very lucky and can’t get any other shots on target! 
He’s best running in behind the defense and sadly might not be quick enough to do that anymore at an international level for all he’s been phenomenal for the Nix.

Handy, but I’m fifty-fifty on him to the WC given he provides a wealth of experience and most of that of winning, but we do have a bunch of players in Garbett, Old, Just, McCowatt, Rogerson, Waine, Greive, Mata, and Singh wanting that spot. On the other hand he’s been the fittest and most in form of any apart from Old and Garbett in the last year. If he was always last seasn’s Nix Kosta in a white shirt there’s no question.

 His best asset is his pace and athleticism - he will be 36 at the world cup, so I think a lot will depend on how well his body holds up!