Beautiful win makes the game cool again

OPINION: The World Cup-bound All Whites have finally made it cool to play, talk about and support football.

Eight years or so ago, when I was a passionate footballer at high school, that was far from the case. The first XI and all other football teams at school were shunted out on to the back fields. We were outcasts – who had to play the game we loved out of the view of passing cars and the general public.

Virtually every football team, barring the top side, had to provide its own coach, with all the teachers at school involved with rugby during the winter months.

People derogatorily referred to the game as "poofball" or soccer at best, and generally regarded you with contempt for playing "the beautiful game".

How the times have changed.

The All Whites' brilliant one-nil second-leg win over Bahrain in Wellington on Saturday night and their qualification for the World Cup for the first time in 28 years will be a watershed moment in New Zealand sport.

Rugby has always been the No1 game in this country and let's face it, it always will be. No-one wants to take that mantle away from the oval-ball game, but it's time to let football have its deserved moment in the sun. Many people have become disillusioned with rugby.

The product has become stale, the rules around the contact area are a debacle and the administrators of the game in this country have got themselves offside with the people who really matter – the fans.

On Saturday, everyone in New Zealand was unified as one in support of the All Whites. The 35,000 capacity crowd at the Cake Tin was a sea of white with people screaming their lungs out for the All Whites.

European football powerhouses Sweden, the Czech Republic, Turkey and Croatia all failed to qualify for the tournament, while the country with the biggest population in the world – China – won't even feature.

The future of football in this country appears rosier than ever at the moment, but we must strive to be the best we can be and not rest on our laurels.

New Zealand Football needs to make the most of this wonderful opportunity and not fall into the same traps that the administrators of 1982 did.

- © Fairfax NZ News

Newest First

Oldest First

AMJ   #4   08:33 am Nov 20 2009

Its the WORLD cup, not the European Cup. Geography is considered and each confederation only awarded a certain amount of places (Europe is given 13 spots). So its up to those countries to make sure they play to their abilities and qualify. Granted we have it easy, but thats just the way Oceania is.

waikato fc   #3   11:20 pm Nov 18 2009

Got up early here in the UK to check the result on Sky sports news channel, wasn't expecting anything more than the score - and it was the lead story! BIG news here, all over the sports news for a few days and regular short highlights packages showed. Great for the NZ game to get this sort of coverage, and hopefully the NZ authorities will milk it for all it's worth!

Roy MM   #2   10:36 am Nov 18 2009

"European football powerhouses Sweden, the Czech Republic, Turkey and Croatia all failed to qualify for the tournament, while the country with the biggest population in the world – China – won't even feature."

Ahem, something wrong with the qaulificantion process perhaps?

Daniel   #1   08:06 am Nov 18 2009

Serbia, Czech Rep, Turkey and Croatia all failed to get in because they had a much much harder route to the cup

NZ had been handed probably the easiest route to a WC, 6 games against pacific Islands and a one off game against....Bahrain

the before mentioned european countries would love that route

Imagine if we had to like the aussies play the Uruguayans, Diego Forlan and Luis Suarez would have a field day with Lochhead and Sigmund, not to mention that Diego Lugano would eat up Fallon

lets get some perspective shall we

good on the All Whites lets hope they spend the money wisely but no need to mention that we are there but other countries are not

makes us sound arrogant

Ad Feedback