NZ 5th place Play Off Home Game

Fixed that for ya

Gotta say a huge thanks to all of the Bloc 5 crew for making us welcome - I had a blast and felt truly honoured to have been accepted among them - to the point that I joined in with the occasional Kingz-related chant despite my historical ties to Wollongong Wolves!  Hope to see you lot down at the Ring of Fire soon enough


Also want to mention I got no "Auckland should host the playoff" argument. Instead all I got was "We could have the playoff in Invercargill and we'll still go, and we hope you lot in Wellington are the same". Great attitude and one I share
robbwatson2008-09-10 23:48:33

Our hearts where in the right place, the aim being 1) to rark up the otherside of the arena 2) we where all students at the time and needed to provide an option for the cheap seats.

Meh, we had fun anyway.
Highlights would be almost loosing men overboard everytime we had the post goal mostpit at Ericson and the fact that the benches could hear everything we said.

Chartering a few planes worth of supporters to the away leg would be epic. Problem being its a punt and people would have to book prior to first leg, even if, God forbid, we lost 3-0 at home for example.

We must Rush! we need this game!

Wellington get the phoenix. auckland/christchurch should get the AWs .Hopefully well get a few home friendlys before then though.

It looks like with North Harbour on 20/25 thousand and Eden Park still in the process of being upgraded Wellignton will get the game by default anyway with a stadium capable of 35K

I rather look for a win than just a stadium. If we play them in the coldest place, it will inhibit their playing because they wouldn't be able to cope with the change in temperature and the jet lag. We saw what happened to the West Indies Cricket's first tour match. We can do the same. No doubt the other team will use their environment against us as well, so I could see why we can't do the same and gain a psychological first up good win score and place them under pressure in the second leg. We should gain as much edge as we can because other teams have been using the environment tactics for countless years. We have an advantage because we have very cold weather and asian teams are not familiar with the cold dew on the ground with the wind chill factor as well as the non-ozone protected sunlight. Let get them sunburn, wind burn and give them the cold virus before the away leg.

I do prefer either Wellington or Christchurch. Wellington with half the squad being Phoenix players, means that we have players that have regular familiarity with home advantage at the ROF. This is important. ROF is our real football centre at the moment and I vote go with the flow.

In that case, Allwhitebelievr, we should have the game down in Dunedin.  That would make a pretty good roadtrip.

Doesn't matter where it is.  Any football fan will travel anywhere in the country for this one.

Not people who can't afford it

Start saving now. 4 sharing a car to Auckland and back dosent cost much each.

I'm going to Akl/ChCh or wherever for the home leg and heck why not going to South America for the away leg?? my mother in law said she's going to give us a lot of cash!! so why not!!!! :)

The away leg won't be in South America. Unless you're interested in the CONCACAF/CONMEBOL playoff...

Hitch, beg, borrow steal, you must get there...it has to be a cauldren!

The venue for the away leg (and of course our opponents) should be decided by June, not that far away!james dean2009-01-21 10:28:45

haahahah yeah i knew it wasn't but I've always wanted to go there so I brought it up!!!!

sadly i dont think chch will get it...its gunna be a game in auk

We're not still squabbling over this are we?

are we any closer to knowing who we are going to be playing?  I am keen to get along to the away leg, so hoping it is either Thailand or possibly Jamica (after a change of rules)

Does the Maldives have a team?

No luck, both have been eliminated from further contention already.

That'd be freakin' schweet.

Think they used to hold the record for the worst defeat in international football before the Australians thumped someone really badly a few years back (think it was 31-0 against American Samoa?).

correct. i would visit samoa again right away! it's such a nice place!

17-0 defeat at the hands of Iran I believe. 

god i hope you were being sarcastic...im sure NZF is aiming for more than 10k for a game of this sorta significance...i was thinking AMI with those temp seats infront of the PKMC stand

Ok, Ok, I feel a compromise is in order.  Karamea?

Maldives 0-17 Iran in 1997

but Maldives drew with South Korea in 2006 World Cup qualifying & they won 2008 South Asian Championship
(from Wikipedia)

That strikes me as extremely unlikely - someone probably having a bit of fun with Wiki.

Before you dissmiss that... look at who plays in the South Asian Football Federation Championships: India, Pakistan, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan. Hardly a big name competition, I find it highly believable that the Maldives won it last year!

I found similar articles in other links. So it is true.

weakest team in Asia
1990s- Maldives
now- Guam

I think Bhutan and the Northern Marianas are pretty rubbish too halu.

I bet the AW`s would struggle beating them.
The Lower Asian teams have really improved there game - unlike someone we know?.

Montserrat?

Yep, just checked it, the Maldives did win that tourney, beat India in the final 1-0.

Theres a documentary called "the other final" between the two worst teams in the world at the time in 2002 on the same date as the World Cup Final between Germany and Brazil. released in 2003. nkcroatia_nz2009-02-02 19:09:07