All Whites headed to World Cup

ROSS GIBLIN/Dominion Post

THAT GOAL: Striker Rory Fallon rises above his team-mate Ben Sigmund and the Bahrain defence to head in the game-winning goal in Saturday night's World Cup qualifier.

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The All Whites may struggle to get games for a full-strength squad before the World Cup finals due to the tight international football "window".

Captain Ryan Nelsen called on New Zealand Football (NZF) to organise more matches for the team before next year's World Cup in South Africa.

"We need to play a lot more games, a lot of preparation," Nelsen said after leading the All Whites to a 1-0 win in Bahrain and a World Cup place for the first time since 1982.

"We can't leave any box unticked. It's got to be total preparation."

NZF chief executive Michael Glading sympathises with Nelsen's stance, but he said yesterday it would be very difficult to get many matches.

"There is only one Fifa [international] window in either February or March, between now and the World Cup. And it' s only a two-day `friendly' window.

"It would be very difficult to get our European-based players released then.

"Ryan said to me last night that we needed more games. But I asked him, `do you think Blackburn will let you fly halfway around the world for two days?'."

"He said, `no way'."

Glading said it might be possible to get a game during that window but the All Whites might have to make do without Nelsen and other British-based players, including goal-scoring hero Rory Fallon, Glasgow Celtic's Chris Killen and young West Bromwich Albion forward Chris Wood. However, Glading stressed that NZF's number one priority "has got to be to ensure the team is as well prepared as it can be for the World Cup" from June 11 to July 11.

He felt the national body had done that this year in the leadup to the Confederations Cup in South Africa in June and the World Cup playoffs with Bahrain.

Glading said several players had intimated in interviews recently that NZF had to do more to get more matches for the All Whites.

"But in reality, we couldn't get any more matches because we used every Fifa window available to us."

No friendlies would be arranged until after the World Cup finals draw is made in Cape Town on December 5 (NZ time). Glading said teams would not commit to friendlies until they knew their World Cup group stage rivals.

NZF chairman Frank van Hattum will attend the draw and start the negotiations process over potential friendly international opponents.

Nelsen has firm ideas about who he would like the All Whites to play in South Africa. "I was watching the '82 recap [on New Zealand's pioneering 1982 All Whites campaign] and I can remember them saying, `we want Brazil, we want to experience that'.

"I completely disagree. I want the weakest teams possible. Hopefully, we can get through."

All Whites coach Ricki Herbert - now set to be the first New Zealander to play and coach at a World Cup finals - warned at Saturday's victory press conference that the national body had to wisely use the World Cup windfall, tipped to be about $10 million.

"They had better spend the bloody money right," he said. "We are not going down that pathway again surely. We've waited 27 years to resurrect something that's incredibly important to us, incredibly important to the players, the public and the kids.

"I'm not sure what they are going to get. There needs to be some deliberation on where that goes.

"These boys are going to go to a World Cup, it will be a dream, something they will never forget.

"It's iconic. The public will embrace them and when they finish they will be remembered as the side that has achieved it again.

"There are kids out there, too, who need to be supported and we need to roll that forward in a very productive way so we become a regular country at these events."

Glading said yesterday that NZF had already been working on a "long-term sustainable" development plan which would now become a "real paper". It would address the needs of "grassroots football".