The Road To Brazil 2014 via Wellington feat. Mexico

I bow to your superior knowledge on the status of the Mexican team/league.

Chivas... I thought we might have had a look at TFC with Ryan.... (I don't pay attention to where both of those sides are ranked sorry)

Personally I am not happy.

We know of these windows how long in advance???

A poor build up will not help us to qualify for the world cup.

We missed the confed cup because NZF was too cheap, which cost us millions literally, and now I feel like their risking it all again to save pennies.

To make money you have to spend it... its no different with making major tournaments.

The sooner we try to join Asia the better.

How will join Asia help us (and this debate has been done to death and not proven to be unilaterally better in theory so....)

This sounds like a cobbled together late scramble to find matches.....local club sides....give me a break. They will hardly be fired up or play their first 11 against us. They will look at it as a chance to give their youth and reserves a hit out. So we play the B team of middling club sides and that is meant to prepare us to play Mexico or Honduras...what a joke!

NZF are sleepwalking to a major f**kup. When did we know we had qualified for the playoffs?.....back in autumn. How long have they had to organise a proper buildup?. Surely NZF should have mapped out a program from earlier in the year...it appears not.We need proper warmup games against proper international teams and we get games against club teams. (Also what happened to the August window????)

I will go to the November game with hope but no expectation of success. Basically this is shaping up as a classic f**k up. Fail to prepare...then prepare to fail!

lol

NZ Football is such a joke.

Just waiting for the hay write up etc having anther go at NZF.

And to be fair they deserve it, completely. 

Sorry Fred, but under your watch NZF has made a hash of terrible decisions, from failing to qualify for the Confed cups by not hosting the qualifying tournament, trying to charge our youth sides and failing to provide a decent campaign leading towards WC qualification.

And lets not forget the biggest mistake of all.... Ricki still has his job!!

Probably more likely to not be televised either I'm guessing. NZF is on a roll

I don't care what anybody says, there is just absolutely no excuse. NZF should be deeply ashamed of the decisions they have made in the past couple of years. Asking youth team players to pay to go to a world cup was a complete joke and now this just tops it off.

If we are facing club sides, do clubs have to release their players? Not sure big Sam will be happy with Reid flying to the States to face a couple of club sides.

It is irrelevant who we play, but the bottom line is that we should be playing someone a lot better than us.  To fully prepare for the play-off we should have a 180 minutes where we have about 25% possession

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/9217643/All-Whites-confirm-warm-up-games-in-US

Pathetic...

and it is also good practise against style of play we could meet..ie fast skilful passing from highlights I have seen on Sommet

What a disgrace that we will be playing against club reserves, Herbert and whoever else is organising this shit need to step down. Why can't we think ahead and play our international window games in Europe like Japan and Australia are doing. 

If they could I reckon NZF would rather just have the All Whites play ASBP sides in October

Good god, what are they doing at NZF? This is a shocker. Be good to be a fly on the wall at the WH offices when Winston asks for leave to play in the window.

WR: "Alright Sam, I need leave to go and play some friendlies in the window."

SA: "Of course son, you've got important World Cup qualifiers coming up, these will be incredibly important in your preparations. Take as much time as you need. Oh, by the way, who are you playing?"

WR: "um, gosh it's um... mumble... and mumble USA"

SA: "Wow, USA you say, and who was that other team?"

WR: "I can't lie to you Sam. It Queretaro and Chivas USA."

SA: "CLUB TEAMS? hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahaha. Gee that was a good one Winston, you nearly had me there. Now seriously, who are you REALLY playing?"

. de Jong needs to go. In a very short space of time he has done a very good job of stuffing up badly our international  programme (the kids and the adults.  I am actually thinking how anyone could possibly have done a worse job. 

Wow, I'm glad there are such a bunch of experts on the ins and outs of international match contracting to put me straight on this.

Just a reminder that in the four months prior to the away game in Bahrain the All Whites played exactly one game - away to Jordan one month before.

This time we will have played four times in the previous two months.

Are clubs obliged to release players during an international window if their national team is not playing against another national team?

I'm really disappointed NZF couldn't find some decent international competition considering the time frame they had. I just cant except that the best warm up games they could get are against Chivas USA and Queretaro who are most likely to be playing a b team. Something is seriously wrong when Saudi Arabia can get a friendly with Argentina and Australia gets friendly's against Brazil and France but we cant even get a decent club to warm up against in how long? If money is the problem then why the hell are we spending 32 mil on a ridiculous yacht race instead of getting decent competition for our national football teams. Argh!

Youll basically eat anything NZF gives you.

Who cares about Bahrain build up. Weve spose to have advanced football in this country. Where does that revenue go? 

Amateur hour

They tend to take football a little more fanatically though..

Let's put this in context.  The All Whites are going to have less of a build up than the U17s - and they're having to pay for their own trip

Cmon Noo Zullund

Not such beautiful losers....

"Jamaica midfielder Jermaine Hue, 35, has been banned for nine months by FIFA for testing positive for the banned substance dexamethasone at the WC qualifier away to Honduras on June 11. Team doctor Carlton Fraser was banned for four years for administering the drug."

Source: UK Daily Telegraph, Sept 27.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11131181

Are NZF trying to save face, or did Sam Worthington jump the gun saying it was confirmed in yesterdays article?

I sure hope they can get some better opposition. Be crazy if that is it before we play someone like Mexico

Everyone seems to be assuming Mexico will be our opponents - but it's by no means certain.

Lets remember table and points situation of three teams chasing third and fourth qualifying spots is:  

3. Honduras : 11 pts   4. Panama : 8 pts  5. Mexico : 8 pts

Mexico fixtures:  12/10/13 Mexico v Panama   16/10/13 Costa Rica v Mexico  If Mexico get some results could finish third if Honduras fail to win any of their two games: 12/10/13 v Costa Rica (H); 16/10/13 v Jamaica (A)

But then again, Honduras only has to win one game to almost guarantee finishing third (goal difference would almost assure it).

Panama has a good chance of finishing in fourth place ahead of Mexico - e.g. if they draw away in Mexico and then beat USA at home. USA have already qualified, so no real incentive for them to go all out to win.

One unlikely but possible scenario is Jamaica could still finish fourth if neither Mex. nor Pan. manage to win a game and Jam. win both theirs.

Goal difference : Hond 10 : 10    Pan. : 7 : 9     Mex.: 4 : 6   So that's pretty tight as well.

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Seems may be some broadcasts of the last two rounds of CONCACAF qualifying on Premier League Pass:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/english-soccer/news/article.cfm?c_id=500842&objectid=11131172

"PLP...is investigating carrying the remaining Concacaf games that will determine who the All Whites meet for the right to go to Brazil next year."