Bulid Up Games- Mexico/Serbia/Slovenia

NZ drew 1-1 with Scotland (in Scotland) before the Confederations Cup in France in about 1997.  I think Nellie scored.

Looks like the auzzies have ditched our world cup pool hopes for 2014. well done Frank van hatten for calling them chicken sh*ts.
Lets hope he keeps his mouth shut and we get a few warm up games.

Wtf ?

It was 2018 and there was never any chance of us hosting games anyway.

Maybe we were trying to get a triple deal with Oz and Brazil for 2014. Group A games to be played in Sydney, Sao Paulo and Wellington.

To some people that thought we might be able to co host in 2018 if Australia are sucessful with there bid is imature. Australia have put a lot of time effort and resources into bidding. What has New Zealand done? Nothing! Wake up.

Do any of our stadiums even meet the minimum requirements? I doubt it

Auckland and Christchurch have the seating capacity requirement. I imagine the focus was Eden Park though, a 45K stadium in Christchurch competing with a temporarily 40K stadium in, say, Launceston? That 5K wouldn't be enough to take away from the Australian-ness of the tournament. 60K in Auckland? That's a bit more attractive.

Thanks for the corrections, it was a long shot.
None the less I think Frank van Hatten is a clown.

Pim has ruled out a game with NZ pre-World Cup.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/soccer/live-chat-with-pim-verbeek/story-e6frfg8x-1225808107581

Is there any chance we will get a warm up game against New Zealand? They're really eager to play us. Sadly not - we have only one game in Australia before we have to go to South Africa, against an opponent similar to Germany or Serbia.

Anyway back to the topic:

These teams I would personally like to target for pre-tournament games:

Firstly, avoid AFC and CAF Teams for preparation, it is very unlikely we will face them in the knockout rounds if we get there. Looking at the draws, only Nigeria seems to have a chance with Australia the next likely to get to the next round.

Teams from COMEBOL: Uruguay, Chile, Argentina
Team from CONCACAF: Mexico
Teams from UEFA: Ireland, Czech Republic, Russia, Serbia, Denmark, Germany.

Have two tours.

One to South America and play Mexico, Uruguay and Argentina. The other to Europe and play Russia, Serbia, Denmark, Germany and then Ireland.

Then the last two games against Chile and Czech Republic in Africa.

Team unity, playing for each other and experience is important but also facing top countries of similar strengths and style as some of our opponents at the WC cup. I don't think we can go more than 10 opponents for the preparation and I don't think we can go less than 6 opponents at the minimum. Some of these places have high altitudes grounds as well as contrasting styles that we would be closely completing with in South Africa.AllWhitebelievr2009-12-09 04:24:56

I think we should play Greece, Czech Republic and Germany from Europe. These games will give us a good build up for the Slovakia and Italy games.

We should also get games against Uraguay, Chile and Mexico who will give us good match practice for Paraguay, who are likely to be a very technical and fast team.

we should be looking at European teams similar in quality to Slovakia......absolutely no point in getting the mother of all hidings playing Germany.

However it suits us to measure up to Germany as the Germans have Australia in their group and they are like a pump up version of Slovakia.

I don't necessary think that we would be taken to the cleaners against them. Maybe it would ideal to play them just prior to the World Cup Tournament. We need to play quality opponents to get the players up to scratch and measure themselves constantly during their prep. This six months will be so crucial to us.

We turned down China for a game in march, surly we must have someone else lined up then?

Kinda glad we turned them down tbh. They werent even close to qualification and they arent the type we want to be playing

It was all expense paid so we better get a replacement for that spot.

I can't see it happening but it would be great to see the AW's play a game at the ROF before the WC. Problem is its so bloody expensive to fly anyone here!!

Any word when they will announce who we are playing in the warm ups?

Why would AW turn down offer to play China? All of a sudden are we too good for them?. Just because they play a different style shouldnt deter the fact that AW still needs warm up games. Hell they even offered to fly AWs there.

Personally I would have loved to see that match (although it was over in China), but I do think it is the right decision .... as long as we can get a more suitable game organised.

We had the wood over China in 1982 and then in the 90's we were sh!te in a tour over there. I think the AWs have stepped up quite a bit over the recent years so it would be nice to test that theory out. But getting prepared for the WC is quite different.

I remember reading in an article that ricki prefered 6 or 8 game warm up. I believe should be atleast 8-10. Australia are playing there usual asia game torny's and so are other countries. I feel that AW's lack of match practice before WC will be the undoing of them. They need games to gel into a more opposing opposition.

Because we can get warmup games against teams that suit us, without travelling to China for no reason when we will be in camp in Europe/SA.

Aussie will play Asian Cup Qualifiers with an almost completely different squad than will go to the World Cup, as most aren't played in FIFA windows.

Would have been good to do it, especially as it was 'catered' for.

Sort of right, blokes like Kennedy may be available for the Kuwait game, but it will be largely A-League boys trying to bolt their way into the World Cup squad.
 

At least Aussie are playing games. Meanwhile AW's havent played any warm up games.

When do the warmup games get announced? brettdale2009-12-14 13:48:48

I reckon a good warmup game for the AWs might be Austria, a reasonable european side (finished third in their group behind Serbia and France)and have reasonable pedigree (beat Franz in WC qualifiers and ran Germany close in Euro 2008) plus playing at altitude there should be doable. Would love to see an Austria v AW matchup.

Although having said that they are ranked 61st...1 behind Bahrain, so they might be too sh*te.

They are sh*te.

Thanks!

First game announced, Mexico in LA:
http://www.nzfootball.co.nz/plugins/newsfeed.cgi?rm=content&plugin_data_id=29372
joachim2009-12-22 18:39:21

I reckon the score will be 4-1 to Mexico

I reckon 5-0 to New Zealand.

That should be a good test for the AWs.

LA anyone?

Basically a home game for Mexico (and Elliott). They'll get a big crowd in LA. Good fixture. I hope we have all available.