Phase 2 of the alignment to discuss past Confederations Cup participations - seeing as number 1 was so....cough.....popular....
The short story is we smaaaaaashed Australia 1-0 at Mt Smart (nee Ericsson) in the Final to send us to the Confeds Cup. All of our pool matches were at NHS, and I arranged A/L to see them all - but I cant remember any of them now.....I thought this was the campaign we bet the Cooks 2-0, but according to Wikipedia I am ignorant and stupid.
Anyway, I do remember the final - the Bloc moved from it's traditional surrounds and moved to the end of the ground where we were to score. Aussie, again, sent a weakened team, with only Scott Chipperfield (Basel) coming over from Europe. We had a number of offshore players, and this was the period where Ivan would just wander around in midfield and not do a lot, despite playing for Roda. Free kick won deep in the second half, swung in by Elliott, shinned in by Nellie, jobs a good'un.
We all started singing "we're going to go to Paris, we're going to go to Paris....." and we really believed that this would be the last ever time that Australia would send a weak team, therefore the last ever time NZ would qualify for a major championship. Australia to Asia wasn't even on the radar. The atmosphere was euphoric. My hands were bleeding from clapping - not like stigmata levels, but red enough that everything I touched had blood on it.....
So Paris-bound we go......a few of the Bloc went. I tacked a Contiki tour beforehand, Karl did one afterwards, Cam Jones (RIP big guy) was there, Mel and Milts were living in the UK by then. Bruce H was there, and a number of others. We met at some Irish pub beforehand, and people were saying how difficult it was to pick up their tickets. I don't know the full story off that, as Karl got mine while I drank, but I'm sure someone can fill in the blanks here.
First game was against Japan and we play like shark and get stuffed 3-0. When the score got to 3, the French crowd were exuberant - I found out this was because they were the WC Final 3-0.....seems they forget that we helped in WW2, and the Japanese were on the Germans side....grumble grumble.....there were also a lot of Kiwis over from London, and called themselves the Wolfpack. It seemed that their main lot in life seemed to be going out of their way to shout down the Bloc, which created a testy atmosphere in that first match in St Denis. Also noticed that the cops there were in full armour, with submachine guns. Oh la la.
Game 2 was in Lyon against Colombia. Lyon is a really beautiful place, and I wish all our matches were there. Stade Gerland was also a nice stadium. Stadia. Somehow, the main NZ support was on one end of the pitch, while Karl, Cam and I were at the other end. They looked great from our view, Milts leading the songs, I hope they saw us wave the Bloc 5 flag from their end. We were singing "Allez Nouvelle Zelande" to the tune of the French National Anthem, and the people around us all applauded it.....that was nice....oh, Karl tried to bring a whole reel of johnnies in the stadium, which one of the armed cops found.....god knows why he brought them in. Raf airshotted a strike which bobbled up, then miskicked it in from 30 yards - we're in the lead! Didn't Smeltz get sent off in this? We crumbled, and lost 1-3. We went to the AWs hotel afterwards and cheered in the boys, and got photos - they looked disappointed. Nelsen especially.
Back up to Gay Paris, where we got our arses handed to us on a nice shiny silver platter. Scott Smith took the field against the Euro 2002 winners - I bet Henry, Pires etc had done a lot of scouting on the man from Kingstonian FC. The score line was moderately respectable for much of the match - I think Killen had a good chance to score? But then their superstar subs came on, they went up the gears and we had no show.
It wasn't till afterwards that I found about the ructions behind the scenes, I heard it was Smalley and Ricki undermining Mick Waitt - and Dewhurst making a pigs ear of his role - I know the fans were unhappy with Dewhurst, but was this more of a general feel rather than anything specific? My memory is he made a cock up of something to do with tickets?
And it wasn't till later I found out about poor Marc-Vivien Foe.
On the field, I thought Elliott and Hay played really well, while Oughton, Zorocich, Vicelich and Lines all had disasters. The rest were on the poor side of average. Our tactics and abilities were negatively viewed by FIFA as well from memory. It wasn't a happy camp behind the scenes, as the money side of things hadn't been sorted with the players, which no doubt had an impact.
Definitely a step back after Mexico 1999
What do other people recall?