The Road To Brazil 2014 via Wellington feat. Mexico

Not surprisingly, some nice finishes, but some woeful defending!

http://www.youtubevideo.com/watch?v=vvuZwGJNNGU&feature=plcp

Has the order of matches (i.e. Home tie first or second) for the CONCACAF playoff been decided yet?

 It was stated last night that we're away first again.

Well, it's official. The final 6 in CONCACAF will be USA, Jamaica, Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Panama. If I were you guys I'd pray that Jamaica finishes fourth - you do not want to play in central america in wcq.

why not?

Would be good to say "My wife went to Jamaica"

"... and she went of her own accord." 

Thank you very much. You're a wonderful audience.

 Because it's hot, not luxorious and full of mental fans.

i herd they have nice food tho

Here's hoping Mexico and USA cruise through the group anyway. 

And a trip to Jamaica for some Jerk Chicken would be nice. But nice fans? Kingston is a pretty rough place lol. 

 True, but I suspect football corwdwise a little less mental than Honduras.

 Canada had a few problems in Panama as well.Party time outside the hotel.

Would fifa allow that?

Piney's tweet (piece) on yellow card and possible suspensions is worth a read before looking to far ahead

 I would like to say that Mexico, United States and Costa Rica will be in the top 3 but it will be either Jamaica, Honduras and Panama for the play-off.

any idea when these play off games would take place?

ALL WHITES RED CARD TIGHTROPE: NINE ON YELLOW CARDS RISKING SUSPENSION !!!!!

What a silly rule it is, that by simply picking up two yellows over all the qualifiers in this stage, players get suspended. (It's even more ridiculous applying in tournaments such as the recent Olympics, Euro Champs or OFC Nations Cup where teams mostly play fewer games.)

Issue of whether players should deliberately seek a card in the next match, serve their suspension and be available for the November inter-continental play-off.

Also OFC admit referee for the Tahiti game wasn't up to it and are seeking Asian officials for the next match v New Caledonia:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/soccer-football/news/article.cfm?c_id=86&objectid=10841137

ALL WHITES MUST ACT WITH CAUTION

By Steven Holloway

1:50 PM Wednesday Oct 17, 2012

Following last night's scrappy but ultimately comfortable 3-0 win over Tahiti, nine of Ricki Herbert's squad now sit on yellow cards, and are each one mistimed challenge away from missing a potential World Cup playoff game next November.

The All Whites have two matches before then, and a win against New Caledonia on New Zealand soil on March 22 in Wellington would confirm their passage.

But what will trouble Herbert is the yellow card dilemma. With so much talent balanced on a knife-edge of suspension, is it ever right to actively seek a booking?

Herbert's first concern will be winning the match and securing the group, but should the All Whites be cruising to a win over New Caledonia, it would be sensible to think of the bigger picture.

Winston Reid, Tony Lochead, Tommy Smith, Michael McGlinchey, Shane Smeltz, Chris Killen, Ivan Vicelich, Jeremy Brockie and Chris Wood are arguably (with the inclusion of Nelsen) our best players, but they have also all been booked.

If any of the above picked up a second yellow in the first leg of the World Cup playoff match against the fourth placed qualifier of CONCACAF, it could be catastrophic, they would be suspended for the return leg - but a booking against New Caledonia could be a blessing.

In the latter scenario the players would miss the final group match against the Solomon Islands, but then have the slate wiped clean for 'the big one'.

However the act of seeking a caution is fraught with danger, especially with the unpredictable standard of refereeing displayed so far in qualifying matches.

Uefa's chief refereeing officer Pierluigi Collina has made it clear that players caught deliberately picking up a booking in order to receive a suspension will receive a two-match ban. Whether the officials will be able to decipher a 'legitimate yellow' from a 'fake yellow' is another matter.

The Solomon Island official Gerald Oiaka was so far out of his depth last night, the match became dangerous, with wild challenges and poor sportsmanship tarnishing the final few minutes.

OFC General Secretary Tai Nicholas today told Radio Sport that he planned on getting referees from the Asian Football Confederation to oversee the match between New Zealand and New Caledonia.

"The referee was perhaps out of his depth and lacked a bit of experience, and we will review that and perhaps he needs to gain some more experience before we allow him to referee again," said Nicholas.

I believe we can do it but I'm worried that we're running out of time to lift our performances to the level required.  From now on we are in operation beat Concacaf - so we need to start focussing on how we want to play that game and who we want to play it and start making it happen.

I think our play since the last world cup has been pretty poor (apart from a small bright spot at the Olympics) and if we fail to qualify it will basically be 4 years wasted.  We've got the same group still together but performances seem to have slipped rather than improved.  Still playing pretty turgid football and relying on the same old war horses.

Good points about jamaica el grap, I'm sure there are plenty of others as well who may pop out of the woodwork.  Raheem Sterling for example was called up recently and there will be others definitely.

I do not agree playing both play-off matches on November because both teams will be tired and most of the play-offs the OFC has been involved since 1986 has been:

1986 20 November 1985 and 4 December 1986
Australia lost 2-0 to Scotland. Australia could of won at Melbourne but Scotland played good football and it was great for the team after the death of Jock Stein.

1990 15 October 1989 and 30 October 1989
Israel lost 1-0 to Colombia. Israel was part of the OFC for policital reasons and if Israel qualifed the UAE would not of played Israel.

1994 31 October 1993 and 17 November 1993
Australia lost 2-1 to Argentina. Australia won Canada in the first play-off but got a 1-1 draw at Sydney and did well to hold Maradona's Argentina to 1-0 but Argentina at that time had played in three out of the previous four FIFA World Cup Finals.

1998 22 November 1997 and 29 November 1997
Australia drew 2-2 with Iran but lost on away goal rule. Australia threw away a 2-0 lead to Iran which would of given Terry Venables' Australia a place in the FIFA World Cup. The Iran manager and players even admitted that Australia should of gone to France.

2002 20 November 2001 and 25 November 2001
Australia lost 3-1 to Uruguay. Australia had a slender lead to take to Montevideo but they had security problems and I think that had an effect on the team. Also Uruguay had played well to get three goals and two years later it was also decided that the OFC should have a long overdue automatic place in the FIFA World Cup and CONMEBOL moaned about it.

2006 12 November 2005 and 16 November 2006
Australia drew 1-1 with Uruguay but won 4-2 on penalties. Australia qualifed for the FIFA World Cup for the first time since 1974 and it was long overdue that the OFC qualifed for the FIFA World Cup because Australia felt they should have been at Mexico '86, Italy '90 (if they won Israel), USA '94, France '98 and Korea/ Japan '02.

2010 10 October 2009 and 14 November 2009
New Zealand won 1-0 with Bahrain. New Zealand played in the first play-off without Australia which had moved to Asia and New Zealand was lucky to beat Bahrain with a penalty save from Paston.

I was talking about this with someone last night. It occurred to me that not only do we only have a 4 day turn around, but we must travel twice as opposed to our opposition only needing to travel once since the first game is away. Not really ideal seeing as it's smack in the middle of football season.

Not sure how locked in those dates are.  Fifa's website says "The matches are expected to be played on 15 and 19 November 2013."  Which from memory is what it said last time too.

Although the format for the other confed says they last games are due to finish in Oct.  Draw for next round isn't out yet.

According to FIFA, the fourth stage in CONCACAF will commence in February 2013, and they have 10 rounds to play to finish that stage.

The FIFA windows for qualifiers are in March, June, September and October (November is set for play-offs). This would take care of 8 of the rounds. It looks as if they'll use the February window too (it's a friendly window), which would make it 9. Then there's the August friendly window which they'll probably use for the 10th round. So November 2013 is really the only time the play-offs could be played.

Is there a window after that?

South America finish in October, so they'll have the same travel issues.

Balls.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/soccer-football/news/article.cfm?c_id=86&objectid=10841918

"In slightly more positive news, FIFA has confirmed the home and away dates for the playoff, and Oceania's representatives will again have the preferred situation of hosting the second leg.

It is generally seen as favourable to have the "death or glory" match on home soil, when the required result is precisely known.

McKavanagh also confirmed that NZF are considering making an approach to FIFA to see if the dates for the playoffs can be changed.

While last time there was a month between the match in Bahrain and the return leg in Wellington, the two matches this time have been set down for November 14 and 20.

There is a concern that the short time between games will compromise preparation and performance."

Sucks there is such a short turnaround, especially with the distance involved.

What colour is the card for a fake yellow?

NZF CEO Grant McKavanagh admitted he was unsure if the cards would carry over into the intercontinental playoffs: "It that was the case it would be a bad situation but I am not sure what we could do about it."

Clearly they do that's why Moss was suspended last time around. That's a rubbish call from OFC, wiping the cards at the end of the 1st qualifying round for a single nation who was never going to make it anyway.

You never know with FIFA though.

If some of those CONCACAF countries are in the same boat (card trouble heading into the play-offs), someone flicks a bung, hey presto - change of rules.

Will be interesting to monitor the CONCACAF card situation as well.