Thoughts on All Whites 1-1 Myanmar
Hmm, okay. Deep breath now. Let’s keep it calm and give the All Whites the benefit of the doubt here. Conditions were tough, ya know? A lumpy pitch and a dense atmosphere. Certainly not all that conducive to beautiful, flowing football. Plus we were missing a few of our key players. A draw against Myanmar, that’s not too bad a result, right? … Right…?
Nope. To put if frankly, that was a terrible result. There’s no excuse for failing to win that. It’s not supposed to be easy, this is international football, but you’re supposed to be able to get the job done all the same. This was a Myanmar team that just lost 9-0 to Kuwait. Nine goals to nil. If we’re meant to realistically believe we can make the next World Cup then we have to be able to beat any team on the planet that loses 9-0 to Kuwait and we should be able to do it by a spare few goals at that. A 1-1 draw? I mean, come on.
As a starting XI, it looked pretty decent though. Brockie and Smeltz up top, it’s been a while since we saw them. Marco Rojas was in behind with Mike McGlinchey and Bill Tuiloma also in midfield, Tui taking the more defensive role. There was a back three of Boxall/Reid/Tzimopoulos and Tom Doyle and Kosta Barbarouses played as wing-backs. Okay, Kosta as a WB was weird (shadings of Herbert & Bertos… *shivers*), but you can always look at him as a winger not allowed to overcommit forward. The back three meant he had plenty of cover and indeed you’d often see Themi dragged wide, as he had the room and cover to do, with the ball played in behind Kosta. It’s the Greek Connection. Stefan Marinovic was in goal, he made an impressive debut against Korea earlier in the year.
The elephant in the room is that Doyle and Kosta were in because the fullbacks against Korea, Deklan Wynne and Storm Roux, are a little too South African for FIFA’s likings. And for some reason NZ Football didn’t notice. We’ve been over this before, whatever, but it’s not a pleasant backdrop. Roux in particular is a very good player who’d probably be starting. Wynne’s a little less essential but it’s hard to find a left back these days, it seems. It’s still ridiculous how this was allowed to happen.
Anyway, bright start from the kiwis. The pitch looked a few bumps short of a minefield and yet we looked to be pretty comfortable on the ball. Chalk that down to the space and time we were given at the base of midfield. Very little pressing from Myanmar, not all that much movement from them either. Granted, it was quite static on our part too. Rojas got on the ball a couple times, there was a low, hard cross hacked away from Smeltz and the All Whites had a couple early corners.
The height advantage was there and it was blatant. When hobbit-sized Marco Rojas is leaping for headers, you get the idea. 8 mins in and Smeltz blasts one just wide. He was offside anyway. He also has a very significant beard.
Myanmar didn’t have the same time on the ball, mostly because they were so eager to do something with it that they went straight for the triangle passes. Two men over to the side, try isolate a defender and pass around him. Their problem was that we’re good at fighting that off and they didn’t really have an alternative plan.
Rojas fed in Smeltz on 18 mins, the keeper came out and palmed it away as the striker tried to round him and square it to an open Brockie. Themi had a header cleared off the line from the resulting corner. Soon after Jeremy Brockie volleyed one hard but straight at the keeper. The screws should have been tightening but… they kinda weren’t. Like, for the opportunities that were coming our way, the intensity to really boss the game was utterly lacking. It was sloppy and slack. On the positive we were able to find open passes in midfield more often than not, that’s an improvement, but there wasn’t anything like the patience needed to make that count for anything. Tuiloma is a great player who did some fantastic work at mopping up that mid, but he’s still a very young player and you can see the gaps in what he does. For one, he’s often hesitant to leave his post, even if it means running just ten metres forward to be an option as opposed to standing behind a marker where he can’t get involved. Though to be fair he still covered a lot of ground and his defensive work was priceless. What we really need is another player who can control a game. Who can pass it around and act as the conductor. But there’s nothing close to that in this current set-up, despite the efforts of Wee Mac, and it doesn’t look like Hudson’s trying to find one.
The amount of times that a couple nice passes were followed by a pumping long ball was, frankly, disheartening. Chris Wood wasn’t there to provide that outlet and it should never be the first idea anyway. Not against Myanmar. Seriously. Pump it long against the South Americans if you must but honest-to-God if we can’t outplay Myanmar at our feet then what are we doing?
The former-Burmans had their first chance of any tangible note 25 mins in. Pace on the break, running in behind with Winston having stepped up, but Boxall did enough to slow it down and then Reid picked it off as he got back in cover. Problem solved, for now.
This was a slow game, creeping forward in increments of seconds, the clock moving faster than any of the players. A goal should have settled the All Whites down, a second goal should have really loosened the shackles. The unimaginative play stems from a team without confidence but Smeltz, Brockie, Rojas… these are players who, at their best, are full of clever movements and exciting football. There wasn’t nearly enough of that and the calming goal still wasn’t coming.
Still, the wing backs were able to find good space forward and it was no surprise that this team’s best chances were all coming through crosses. Tom Doyle gave the ball away several times in the first half but his crossing was very good, Smeltz headed one over, a couple others weren’t capitalised on. The midfield were holding back, though, and the defence were wary of stepping over that halfway line with the counter attacking edge of their opponents. So naturally we almost conceded by stepping too far and getting counter attacked. Themi was out of position, Reid was late to play the offside trap. Luckily Marinovic was able to use his length to make a strong save to keep Ko from getting round him. Wipe that sweat off the brow for now.
How much we can blame the heavy touches on the pitch is hard to say, but it’s not a new problem. These All Whites don’t have anything close to a fluency about them. Passes miss their targets and then clumsy fouls keep the game from taking off. There were a lot of stoppages in this game.
The longer it stayed 0-0, the more that played into the hosts’ hands. But right before the break we finally split ‘em. As is always the best idea for a team lacking in any piercing attacking footy, just give the ball to the most creative guy in space and let him do his thing. Marco Rojas did that, jinking his way past defenders on a mazy run. Here it is:
Ah, no, wait. Wrong clip.
Twinkling stuff from Lil Marco, as blatant a penalty as you’ve ever seen. Not for a second did it ever feel like Smeltz would miss. He’s now got 24 international goals, nearing Vaughan Coveny’s national record of 29. 1-0 up at half time, it hadn’t been pretty but that should have been the launching pad to a dominating second period. This Myanmar team just lost 9-0, you know, how resilient could they be?
Instead the All Whites got worse. Hudson said he wanted them to calm down and what they did was fall asleep (probably much like the Sky Sports viewership back in NZ). The second half started with Themi getting burned and giving away a hard foul in the edge of the box and soon after Marinovic watched a shot fly past his post on the break. 55 minutes in and off came Tuiloma, on came Clayton Lewis. If there was some logic in that then it was missed in Nichey HQ. It could have been a club instruction, though given he’s just gone on loan that seems unlikely, or it could have been an injury. Either way, there went the security blanket. 10 minutes later it was level.
Myanmar created some space down our left flank, with some swift movement and a smart ball cut back to the edge of the box. Bang, shot comes in, deflects off Reid’s face, and into the net. Goddammit.
Now what? We had to press for a winner, this was a game there for the taking, but where was that second goal coming from? Even in the second half there had been bugger all besides a scramble that didn’t quite fall to Brockie and a few crosses. It’s pretty poetic, right? A team without any purpose or control falling back on their blind faith in a cross?
Where was Rojas? Why wasn’t he more involved? Why were Smeltz and Brockie unable to link up more often? Where were the game breakers on the bench? How were we not winning despite it all?
It was all too much kicking and not enough passing. Too much Ballfoot and not enough Football.
Alex Rufer and Harshae Raniga made their debuts coming on for Brox and Kosta. Rufer has pedigree but he’s yet to show much for the Nix or for his country, though he does look like a player that’d impress in training. Rufer had a busy cameo though. It was his header that was tipped onto the post in the 81st and he slipped in a fine ball in for Moses Dyer late on, whose pop back inside was blocked. As for Raniga, that was tragic. Four minutes into his debut he landed awkwardly on his knee and didn’t get back up in a hurry. He’d gotten on the wrong side of his man but had enough pace to get around and charge the ball down, however his leg planted in the wrong spot and it was not a happy sight to see. Tim Payne came on for him. Liam Higgins also made a debut for Doyle and Dyer his second cap for Rojas.
By this time the concept of ‘three or four passes’ might as well have been gibberish. Long balls and early crosses, nothing else. If only Chris Wood was there. At least Winston was there, we had him to thank for breaking up a few late, late threats.
But even a draw was a borderline disgrace. 9-0 to Kuwait, we barely even threatened them. Sure, we had chances, and sure we could have taken a few more of them, though it’s not like we were missing sitters. It was a limp and lifeless performance. So little imagination. So little cohesion. The conditions were tough and both sides had players succumbing to cramp yet this game should have been over after half an hour if the All Whites had anything close to a cutting edge. There was structure but no life. This was an empty shell of a team.
Their goal was a deflection and ours was a penalty. To say this was disappointing is an understatement. It was awful. Suddenly the underlying frustrations of this Hudson campaign are allowed to come to boil. He hasn’t won a game yet. Not one. Two draw and three losses. In fact the All Whites haven’t won since beating Saudi Arabia two years ago, that makes 11 games and counting. And for all the depth that Hudson’s supposedly creating, none of it is counting for anything. There’s a difference between creating depth and playing guys who simply aren’t ready yet. Just goes to show that right now we’re not worth much as soon as we lose a few key guys. Look, there’s plenty to like about the managerial side of Anthony Hudson’s reign but it’d be nice to see a few signs of coaching here and there. Wasn’t he trying to create a team that’d offer an attractive style of play? Then somebody please explain the fixation with long balls. It wasn’t just at the end of the game that they resorted to that, it happened for 90 minutes. There’s still no patience on the ball. There’s no discernible purpose to their football. And if we can’t beat a team like Myanmar then what exactly are we doing here?