Darren Bazeley wants to continue as All Whites coach despite them failing to achieve their goal of making the knockout stages at the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
But NZ Football is set to wait until November and the completion of an external review before making any decisions, with Bazeley contracted through the next two international windows.
Speaking at BC Place after the Belgium defeat, Bazeley said: “I’d like to continue, for sure”.
“It’s been a great campaign. I’ve loved every minute of our experience. Being here at a World Cup has been amazing. I think we’ve had some moments where we’ve started to show the type of team we can be. We haven’t got the win that we wanted, but it was always going to be tough.”
Bazeley said the quality of the environment he had helped foster over the past three-and-a-half years could be seen in how players readily made a big step up in the Iran and Egypt matches.
“I love this job. I love working with these boys. I’m so proud of these guys. If you see the culture and the environment that they’ve got together, that we’ve worked to build as a staff … we’ve created a really good environment for them to hopefully go out and perform.
“Take the game against Iran and the first half of the game against Egypt – I think they were our best performances in four years, so for us to do that at the World Cup is testament to [the fact] that it’s a good space for our players to be able to perform here, while still not getting the win that we wanted – I do understand that, but they'll be better for it. They’re a great set of lads. I’d love to help.”
Chief executive Andrew Pragnell told Stuff the All Whites’ campaign had “been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster”.
“Right now, obviously, there's a sense of disappointment – and so there should be – around what should have been and could have been. As we step back from the emotion, there are a lot of bright spots. We played some good football, we scored a lot of goals, Eli Just had some incredible breakout performances.
“We'll take some heart from some of that, but ultimately the day after the last game, it's just it is a feeling of disappointment around what could have been. The key from these things is that you learn from them and that you come back stronger.”
Pragnell wouldn’t be drawn on where he felt the All Whites fell short ahead of the review of their campaign.
“I think it would be unfair of me to pass judgement on that at this point in time. We want to do these things carefully and debrief this properly.
“Clearly the first two games were major opportunities for us. The third was always going to be a steeper hill.”
While the All Whites had not achieved their stated goals, that would not be the sole factor in determining the coaching staff’s future.
“Nothing's black and white, for sure,” Pragnell said. “Turning over each stone to ensure that we continue to get better is the most important thing.”
One of the big what-ifs after any World Cup is whether the selection and substitution calls were right and there has already been plenty of debate about those of Bazeley and his staff, with the choice of goalkeeper, the choice of centre backs and the continued backing of right back Tim Payne and attacking midfielder Sarpreet Singh among the topics.
Speaking the afternoon following the Belgium match, Bazeley was in a soul-searching mood in that regard.
“Hindsight is a great thing. It goes through my head all the time – I'm in that stage at the moment of bargaining with myself around this whole thing, what if I'd done that, what if we'd done that, what if we'd done that – there's so many scenarios, but what you don't know is had we done something – what would the outcome have been?. Had we made that change – what would the outcome have been? That's not something that we'll ever know.
“It definitely lingers in my head – selections, decisions, substitutions, tactics, everything that goes into the whole process. Everything is done with a meaning, everything's [part of] a plan.
“We were very close to it working out perfectly and then there's these moments. I've said it for a long time – ultimately, football is all about moments. We need to defend a set play. We need to defend a cross. Had we done that in certain moments of this tournament, we'd probably be going to Dallas [to play Australia in the round of 32].”
