Bankok Game

that is so true re the geography. very unlikely we will play in ridiculous humidity given who is left in contention for that 5th Asian spot

The fact is that we are ranked about 40 places higher than Thailand.If we can't beat them, then we have got no chance against the much higher 5th Asian side.If you can play football, you can play in any conditions.

This just shows that lack of preparation/cohesion/match fitness + hostile conditions = rubbish performance.

Take that into account, plus that we'll be playing a much better side in the WC playoff, and it's not looking good.

Well, knowing now that it was Bright who scored, Smeltzy has finally lost his magic touch for the AWs going back to the draw against Wales which I attended in Wrexham. 

I can't help but think that the fact that the A League boys haven't played in a while took a huge toll on the team whilst people like Bright, whom to be honest is not one of my favourite players in the world, are.

He fails to score in 1 game that only one person here saw, and he's lost his Magic Touch? interesting.....

He got goals in 5 or 6 games in a row, can't remember which.

[ sidetrack: New Zealand cant beat Thailand, how to beat the play off team for the World Cup from AFC??? = [/QUOTE]

[ Let just say it's not gonna happen for new Zealand. Aren't they going play Spain later this year too? It's gonna be ugly..[/QUOTE]

[ Can we join Oceania region? More easier to win Oceania Champion League, WCQ or Oceania Cup...lols[/QUOTE]

[ Oceania should just merge with South East Asia.[/QUOTE]

[ what the he11 is wrong with the FIFA ranking?? it's completly F-UP!!
does anyone know how the system works?

New Zealand-79  North Korea-107 Thailand-118  Singapore-132 Indonesia-137
Thailand, N. Korea, Singapore, Indonesia should go way up!!![/QUOTE]








some responses in Singapore forum




halu2009-03-30 22:58:11

Sick of the f**king excuses that come with defeats like this. It's a rubbish result and that's putting it lighty.

nothing will change while we have this silly Oceania confederation either.

I'm assuming no online radio coverage of the game or text updates?

Exactly and I think that is down to having not played much recently.

any updates for game that has nearly finished. nothing about it on livescore.com which had the last game

It's full-time in the Supachalasai Stadium in Bangkok, and a 2-2 draw is the outcome.

Not good, can't even beat Thailand B, I see cricket scores in SA.

Both goals to Nelson.

Lochhead sent off but then one of his two yellows rescinded after the game - mistake identity.

Pretty pathetic results no matter what the situation. 

I'd call it a decent result if all our players had broken legs.

In my view it was a fairly good outcome for us, there is 2 reasons i base this on.
1, the heat and humidity, you can all say what you like about it, but i just hope i never have to play in those conditions, you can hardly breath.
2, The refereeing  was terrible, to say they got a couple of home decisions is an understatement, and at fifa events you will have better refs. Point and case is the Lochead "incident" where he got given another players yellow.
Even with ten players i definitely thought we were going to be the team to score, and with a little bit of luck we might have. As for there goal from a free kick, all i can say is WOW. hope ricky got his number, cause if he can do that regularly the nix should sign him.

Exactly.

f**king hopeless.

Yep.

P.S. Sack Ricki. He's a soft c**k

Or ban auskiwi.

Ricky has had 5 years now to garner better results out of the boys then this.  It is now time to step up and stop these rubbish results against teams like Thailand.  These results would have been fine in 05/06 but not in 09, our biggest year since 81/82.
disco_mart2009-04-02 22:10:25

Agree with disco mart. Terrible results - Ricki Herbert can talk about the heat, dodgy ref, players being out of season - which most of you believe as per usual. If your a decent footballer you can play with a rubber ball in a side street, let alone playing for your country. Just the usual from a guy that likes to take the praise when things are going well and has plenty of excuses when things aren't. Sh*t never sticks to him and yes we can all say it only matters about the two games at the end of the year but we should be dominating these minnow teams like Australia are against far superior opposition in actual actual world cup and asian cup qualifiers.

Sorry for speaking the truth. Are you a fan of Dictatorships where someone who has an opinion different from your own should be banned. You poor little man

Well said Pony.

I see this morning Argentina (6) lost 6-1 away to Bolivia (56). FIFA rankings in brackets. How can that happen? Surely Argentina should win. What excuses do they have? Altitude? Maradona?
 Poor results against Thailand/A. No doubt. I seem to remember some poor results in 1981. So lets hope for a similar outcome.

Say what you will about FIFA rankings, but since FIFA rankings were created almost 20 years ago now, NZ have only ranked higher than Thailand for about a combined total of 2/3 years. They are not a bad side, though I would be hoping we are building in the right direction toward the confed cup and WC qualifiers.

And it seems from the Thai FA the second game was against there u23 team.

About time we raised our standards and expectations then.

hmmm - those facts and that graph place things in a bit more context. v good research

I think that graph has to go under the heading of "Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics"

In the last couple of years we've scored a lot of ranking points in WC qualifiers against the Pacific nations at which time we were ranked lower than them which gave us a lot of points from just a few games and now (new ranking system came in at the start of 2006) WC games have more impact. We also only lost 1 WC game so our average is quite high (another factor). During that same time Thailand have been playing against much tougher opponents and have lost a lot of those games.

Rankings are really only of limited value.

You're better off comparing games between the 2 teams and any common opponents. The only common (recent) opponent I can find is Malaysia who the Thais comfortably beat 3-0 in December.

Also think about how regularly they play together. The Thai national side play a lot more regularly than we do.

And don't knock the quality of the Thailand A side either. From what I read there were a number of players from the full national side playing for the A's.

All in all I can't really see it as a disaster as long as the experience is built on, we continue to play more friendlies, we do OK (read - don't get totally embarrassed) at the Confeds Cup and then do the business in October.

Ricky has had 5 years now to garner better results out of the boys then this.� It is now time to step up and stop these rubbish results against teams like Thailand.� These results would have been five in 05/06 but not in 09, our biggest year since 81/82.[/QUOTE]

I agree. He has now had plenty of time to achieve results but you can not throw a coach out before the qualifiers for a World Cup. You also can not take too much out of the Thai games. They are build up's.
Ricky will have his chance to prove himself in the qualifiers.
If he does not succeed then, then he should resign, just as he should resign if he does not achieve less than a top four finish at the Phoenix this season.
If not he needs a push!

Very good comment by Malky below.

For context Bahrain (as one of the 3rd placed teams currently) drew (1-1) and won (3-2) their 2 WC qualifiers to Thailand so that's the benchmark.

This shows that it is well within Ricky's reach to turn the Thailand game around in the qualifiers. Have some faith.

When are we going to admit that we are not good enough to play in the World Cup Finals.

When we get horrendously shown up in Confed Cup and/or when we loose heavily in the first of the two playoff games.