I Remember...

I Remember...

I remember trying to convince my friends, even ones that play football, to watch the qualification games. I remember trying to get them to take an interest in the Nix.

likes this

I was preparing myself for a defeat. ...

Too true! I remember getting sh*t for playing football at school. I remember following rugby just to fit in because that is the sport New Zealanders follow.

I remember getting ready to come on to this forum to bitch about how average we were in the second half! I remember Reid giving me a sore throat and giving me the greatest feeling in my life!

words really cant explain.

how something as simple as a game, that we didnt even win can make you feel on top of the motherf**king world

seems not jst our media talks bout rugby and nz, loved part about australia tho lol

Cheap and nasty translation:

SLOVAKIA - NZ 1-1 (Group F): The New Zealanders are most known for their rugby (with the super-strong All Blacks), love open-air sports, from sailing to rvier rafting (?), invented bungee jumping and also a strange version of golf played in open fields with an oval ball (?!?). But football, soccer, has never been until now popular enough to provide players of an international level. Until now. Because the result obtained today at Rustenburg perhaps will change something also in the history of Kiwi football. NZ obtained its first historic point in a World Cup, at its second attempt after that of 1982. A draw achieved thanks to a goal at the 93rd minute scored from the head of central defender Winston Reid, who received a beautiful cross from the left. Reid will become a NZ sporting hero with this goal which realises a dream. Also because the Australian "enemy" are at the same time stuck on zero, thanks to Germany. Certainly, overall it wasn't a squad from the first level of European football. But Slovakia was certainly a formation tactically and technically on a higher level than the Kiwis. And with world-class players like Hamsik. Which obviously made the game, showing good tactics but realising only one goal (Vittek at 50 mins) and wasting some. The NZers with pride looked for the draw right until the end and got it. For the first time the Kiwis have achieved the thrill of a comeback goal in an international showcase like this. It will be a step forward for the spread of football in the antipodes of Italy. Pending its encounter with the Blues on Sunday at 1600.

hey... don't you know that you invented a new sport?!!?

http://www.golfcross.com/

That kind of thing really makes me hate the tourist industry in this country, for making this country look like nothing but an empty wasteland populated by baristas and inventors of weird sports. It's up there with charging money to go to an empty field near Matamata on the basis that a movie was filmed there.

Nice bit on Morning Brekky show, where they had a mock-up of the New York Times Front Page (after USA-Turnip result)

NZ WINS 1-1  

I remember a cold day in 2001, wagging school and going with my dad to North Harbour to watch the All Whites stumble to a rubbish 2-0 win over the Cook Islands.

I remember seeing Vanuatu embarrass us 4-2 in Adelaide in 2004. One couldn't begin to dream about moments like today.

I remember watching Australia qualify in 2005, and seeing all the wild celebrations that followed. I wondered what that would feel like.

Today still feels surreal. It still hasn't sunk in.

13 years of hurt. Washed away in a moment.

I am one of the 2,676 people who bothered to turn up and watch the All Whites play Vanuatu at Westpac in 2007.

I'm with you man.  I'm with you.  Nowadays I'm a leaguie and football man... why, because those games are so much more enjoyable to watch and are at such an epic frenzy of speed and tactics that you TRULY experience every emotion under the sun as opposed to how kick, fall over and giggle used to make me feel.

I remember watching the Football Kingz implode first, and then watch a distinctly ordinary Knights side get crushed week in week out and thinking how on Earth do we respond from this?

I remember driving past the Cake-Tin earlier this year and saying to the wife that's where the Phoenix play.  She goes, yeah.. ok, but that's where they play cricket isn't it?  Last night my Aussie wife watched the game and was emotional over that goal like I was.

It's fitting that Ricki Herbert coaches a club called the Phoenix, because frankly this revolution in NZ football is amazing and I am loving it.  I screamed my lungs out last night and cried tears of joy, oh what it is to be a Kiwi and a football fan, and it being kewl to be both.
The(O)Dor2010-06-16 17:15:38

Am a Phoenix season ticket holder from season one
Was at the Vanuwatu game
Was at the Bahrain game
Was at the semi in the A league

But last night tops the lot - so far

and don't forget sheeps!

nooo...i'm jooking!
ok...these are stupid things the journalist put in the article to make "color"... but there is great respect for you, NZ is a marvelous country....or, at least, in our minds is marvelous... maybe for you that live there is different, i don't know
however, i'm going OT...

compliments to you...  historic moment!
Triplete2010-06-17 00:06:06

Congratulations New Zealand from the Kingdom of Bahrain!

via Facebook from "Mr. Bahrain"

He wishes us all the best in upcoming games and "hopes the joy continues".

Congratulations, Ahmed for the excellent performance and great result.
I am very happy and I hope to continue this achievement.

ahmad2010-06-17 00:12:22

I remember the only way I could follow that match against Georgia was via the georgian FA website (their language doesn't even use the roman alphabet, so had to assume that the country that looked like it had two words was NZ)

I like this photo montage from the Italian footie site about...Ricki and Ryan enjoying themselves.  Great.

I love the caption: "The coach and captain salute the Kiwi tifosi". I can't imagine rugby or netball acknowledging the hard-core fan base in that way; and that's why I love following the round-ball football code.

Quality read and pics. Cheers.