Do Bahrain have the minerals away from home?

The anticipation is killing me, and the debate surrounding the match is only strengthening the horse of butterflies that are swarming in my belly at the merest thought of tomorrow's match. So, rather than letting the heart overrule the head, I thought it was probably worth a look at the statistics leading up to the big match on Saturday - as much to help calm my nerves as anything else.

First, when looking at previous meetings between the two nations, history suggests that the tie should run in the All Whites' favour. The record shows a total of three matches played with New Zealand taking the victor's spoils on two occasions, with the draw in Manama the other match between the two sides. Keeping history in mind, it is also worth noting that Bahrain have never reached a World Cup Finals while the All Whites still have the heady days of 1982 as our only appearance.

During their road to qualification, Bahrain have had a fairly mixed bag away from home - I intentionally didn't add Saudi Arabia into the mix, as geographically they are very similar, and the point of this discussion is to see how they fare in environments relatively different to their own (you could argue Qatar in this context too). Their win/loss ratio is roughly the same with a couple of draws thrown in for good measure. Interestingly, their heaviest away defeat was a 2-0 loss to Australia in conditions that were not dissimilar to what is expected in Wellington tomorrow night. However, one thing that they have is playoff experience. For Germany 2006, they had a two-leg playoff with Trinidad and Tobago - drawing 1-1 away and losing 1-0 at home. They know just how heartbreaking it is, and it is potentially the tonic that some of their squad will need to push themselves further.

Is the weather really going to be that much of a factor? Talk around the place seems to suggest that most people are wishing for a roaring southerly to sweep through the Ring of Fire, but is it really going to give us as much of an advantage as most people are hoping? In a trainspotter-esque effort, I mapped the temperatures at each city on the days of their qualifiers, and it seems they fared reasonably evenly regardless of the temperature. Given that, I'm not convinced it is going to be as much of a factor as some think.

Acclimatisation to the conditions is a different story, however, and the Bahrainis have been widely criticised for not coming to Wellington earlier. Training and kicking a ball around in Sydney is a totally different proposition to doing the same in our fair capital. Temperature aside, the Wellington wind is something that the Phoenix players know all too well - especially the way it swirls through the Ring of Fire. As the Yellow Fever chant goes: "we've got the wind, the rain and the Phoenix, oh Wellington is wonderful". Let's hope that the wind and rain come to our aid tomorrow night.

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If you're heading to game on Saturday, make sure you familiarise yourselves with the All Whites chants - as put together by the Yellow Fever/White Noise crew!

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Sam   #1   10:09 am Nov 13 2009

Wouldn't these statistics assume that the opponents are all 'equal'. Could it not be that their losses can be attributed to simply playing a better team (and their wins a worse team)?

Dr Evil   #2   02:28 pm Nov 13 2009

You're right Sam, essentially it seems to suggest that they travel reasonably well. Given that they finished third in the group behind Aussie and Japan, the other results seem to be as expected. Not the sort of stats I like to see the day before the game!!

Sam   #3   04:17 pm Nov 16 2009

No!

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