Bahrain coach not so cheery now

The game that got us to South Africa

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All Whites captain Ryan Nelsen celebrates with teammate Ivan Vicelich.

Video: All Whites highlights

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OPINION: Bahrain coach Milan Macala is a bad loser and must surely be fighting to save his job in the wake of his team's disastrous loss to New Zealand.

The 66-year-old Czech didn't even have the decency to front the international media at the offical press conference in the wake of Bahrain's 1-nil loss to the All Whites.

Full of humour and clever one-liners on the eve of the match, Macala was nowhere to be seen in the aftermath to another World Cup qualifying disaster for Bahrain.

Four years ago they were upset at this last qualifying stage by Trinidad and Tobago and now the All Whites have left them shattered.

Just a month ago Macala was voted one of the most influential people in the wealthy Arab nation.

Now he must face up to the reality of another failure after being spared no expense to try to beat New Zealand.

That included national airline Gulf Air flying his squad and massive support team to New Zealand on their own specially chartered plane.

Macala's decision to spend the week training in Australia backfired on him as Bahrain were left floundering in Wellington's notorious wind.

A howling northerly swirled around the Cake Tin and Bahrain always looked vulnerable at set piece time. So it proved when New Zealand striker Rory Fallon got up to head in the game's only goal on the stroke of halftime.

Macala spoke of his team learning lessons from their last World Cup failure and being able to handle the pressure.

But dogged defensive play from the All Whites and the screaming support of a fanatical New Zealand crowd dressed in white proved too much for his players.

When striker Sayed Mohamed Adnan missed his second half penalty their heads went down.

They were guilty of celebrating before he had even taken the kick and couldn't handle the reality of his weak effort that was brilliantly read by All Whites keeper Mark Paston.

Increasing errors crept into their game as time ticked away on their search for an equaliser that would have sent them through to the World Cup in South Africa proved fruitless.

Even their vocal pocket of support in one corner of the stadium dried up.

The Bahrain players were in tears after the final whistle.

Now it remains to be seen if Macala's bosses have any more support for him.

According to the Fifa website he has been in charge of six national teams without making it to a World Cup finals.

Early reports on the loss in the Arab media were fairly matter of fact although Aljazeera described it as a “World Cup heartbreak” for Bahrain.

Under a subhead of “Premature Celebration” they noted the penalty shambles, saying:

“Bahrain needed only a score draw to qualify and were celebrating in front of their small group of vocal fans when Abdulla Omar was brought down in the box by Tony Lochhead for a penalty. However, Adnan's weak effort was easily saved by Paston to the delight of most of Saturday's 35,194 crowd.”

- © Fairfax NZ News