Once upon a time the All Whites went to Bahrain in the first leg of a World Cup playoff and came back with a battling 0-0 draw. The second leg, as they say, was history. Four years later the All Whites went to Mexico for the first leg and returned with a 5-1 deficit. The second leg was history then too but in a different meaning of the word.

The obvious difference here is that for once the All Whites were drawn to host the first game, which doesn’t make much of a difference to how the kiwi team was always gonna shape up but it does make a difference for Peru. This gets the unknowingness all out of the way at once. All the preparation in the world doesn’t add up to the knowledge of having played against this NZ team and the same goes for the Wellington thing. You never really know until the game kicks off.

That’ll lend itself to caution 99 times out of 100, especially with so much at stake. You could see that across all the first leg qualifiers this weekend. There were three 0-0 draws, two 1-0 wins and then that one anomaly game where Croatia hammered on Greece but… Croatia are way better than Greece and were playing at home (most of the favourites were on the road). The only reason Croatia were in this playoff at all was because they were drawn with the mighty Iceland in their group. Croatia then settled for a 0-0 in the second leg to cruise through.

2018 World Cup Playoff First Legs:

• New Zealand 0-0 Peru
• Honduras 0-0 Australia
• Northern Ireland 0-1 Switzerland
• Sweden 1-0 Italy
• Denmark 0-0 Rep. Ireland
• Croatia 4-1 Greece

And Peru are a very good home team. Their only home defeats in qualifying were a 2-0 loss to Brazil, who ran away with the South American stuff, and a 4-3 loss to Chile back in October 2015. 15 of their 26 points in getting to this stage came at home and they scored at least twice in six of those nine games. Meanwhile it’s worth mentioning that outside of Peru they may have won three games but all three came against teams that finished below them and La Blanquirroja didn’t score once in away games against the four teams that went through automatically – granted that includes that crucial 0-0 in Argentina.

Point being that this was a decent enough result for both teams. Ricardo ‘El Tigre’ Gareca will have targeted that home leg from the very start. His team got to this point by punishing teams worse than them and playing tight against the others. Sure, New Zealand ain’t much compared to the might of South America… but the occasion goes a long way towards easing that difference. And Winston Reid did the rest.

It’ll be a completely different story in the second leg, no doubts about that. But balancing that obvious advantage out is the fact that if the All Whites can grab a goal then a scoring draw will put them into the World Cup. And a 0-0 draw will force extra time and potentially penalties. Peru has to win here, New Zealand does not. Considering that Anthony Hudson has only ever won once against a non-Oceania opponent (and it was Oman, hardly on par with the dudes they’ll see again on Thursday)… that’s a significant detail.

Bugger that nothing to lose bollocks though. All the pressure’s on Peru? Mate, we’re 90 minutes away from qualifying for the World Cup, sit down with that. As difficult as the second leg’s gonna be the lads did more than enough in Wellywood to prove they’re in with a shot here.

His Eminence Winston Reid goes without explanation. You saw what he did, you saw how heroic that joker was. What makes it even crazier is how the dude’s not even fully fit. He’s played one game since last getting injured and he’s flown halfway around the world to get here. Oh and he sucked in that last West Ham game too. But in Wellington he threw down a legacy gauntlet.

Ryan Nelsen achieved things on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean that no other kiwi can double up on. However Winnie’s also captained a Premier League team, you know. Just like Nelsen he defends as if his life depends on it… only with a few less fist-pumps. He’s scored at a World Cup too. Nelly also missed a lot of All Whites games with injury so you can’t hold that against either of them. Add that all up and we’re getting very close to having to admit that Winnie has surpassed old mate Nelly.

As for Chris Wood, he may score a lot of goals but please. He’s not even played ten PL games yet – if you think he’s a better player than Reid already then chill. If you had to choose between the two of them for this game then Reid was the correct answer. The clean sheet was the most important thing.

Having said that, The Woodsman’s pretty bloody good and incredibly important for the All Whites. So when news breaks that he’s out of the line-up to play Peru then you could be forgiven for setting fire to all your clothes and running screaming down the street (forgiven by me… maybe not by the fuzzbags tho). Sounds like he was always in a bit of doubt, which puts a new perspective on those closed training sessions then, aye?

Considering that Rory Fallon is as surprised as you that he got called up, he was never gonna play. And considering that Brockie’s recall was lumped in with Fallon’s, he was also very little chance either regardless of his form. Shane Smeltz maybe? Nah, the question of who replaced Woody was simple in the end: nobody.

Nobody could so nobody did. Kosta and Marco each started up front, Wood’s two most regular sidekicks. That allowed Clayton Lewis in as the attacking mid and the rest was as expected. Kip Colvey a surprise at right back but it sounds like Storm Roux still isn’t ready to go after a knock for the Mariners. Colvey’s yet to do it for the All Whites but that’s better than Dane Ingham’s record so far. Hey, they’re all young. Lotsa time to figure it out. The rest of the team was as expected.

There was an inkling that Clayton might get a start – the fitness thing is an issue but remember that he played really well when put into the starting XI at the Confeds. Set up Woody’s goal and everything. Again you could see that he burnt out in the second half and the only surprise about his subbing was that it didn’t come sooner. However in that first 45 he was full of work, doing his best in the futile task of trying to link up on attacks (only Ryan Thomas was able to get that done) but especially working hard on closing down those Peruvian midfielders.

Peru likes to get their fullbacks going forward if they can, which allows their wingers to drift a bit. There was a glimpse of that early on when Christian Cueva worked a flick on to get some space in the box down the right but that was about all, really. Lewis and the strikers didn’t do anything crazy in pressuring the defenders but they made sure that Tapia and Yotun had little room to create things.

It’s sorta reminiscent of something Sir Alex Ferguson said about playing Real Madrid once. People wanted to know how he could possibly manufacture something to stop all those attacking threats and he said the key wasn’t them – once Ronaldo gets the ball it’s already too late. The key was to cut off the supply line, aka Xabi Alonso.

The All Whites were supposed to watch out for the sorcery of Cueva but the bloke hardly did anything. There were barely any opportunities for Peru to attack at pace and they were a little too hesitant to really throw guys forward and risk something coming back the other way. In fact their best chances came from a miscommunication between Reid and Marinovic (the only mistake by either all game) and a couple headers from set pieces. Oh and that one shot that Aquino drilled well wide after Marinovic had probably been fouled (and even then he might have still had it covered).

It’s not like NZ created much themselves. A few halfies in the first stanza which all came through Ryan Thomas in one way or another, then a spell of about 15 minutes at the end where they brought the chaos and it led to a driving shot from Kosta that went a lot wider than it felt like it did in the moment and then that drive from Thommo which was every bit as close as it seemed. Man… just imagine the scenes if that had gone in!

What changed in the last 15 mins? Chris Wood came on, obviously. And that’s where the confidence for Lima has to grow from. Fifteen minutes of Chris Wood, yo. He made all the difference and hammy or no hammy there’s no way he misses that second leg even if he has to play on crutches. Bill Tuiloma brought some energy too. More of a worry for that second leg is Tommy Smith, who was playing pretty well until he had to be replaced with a quarter of the contest left, leaving him in doubt for #2. Love some Andy Durante… but he’s a bit slow these days to have much belief in him getting that job done against Farfan and Carillo.

By the way, Smith may have come off hurt but he was visibly annoyed at that and his little pump up motion to the crowd showed that he’s all in on this thing. And as for Winston Reid, who bloody Dewhurst may as well have dedicated a running scroll to on the telly coverage for his limps and bruises… did he even go down once? Yeah he did but it was for an elbow. It would’ve taken an amputation to get him off the park so everything else was scaremongering. Also, Winston plays with a perpetual grimace on his face at the best of times so let’s not go misdiagnosing that as another injury, please.

Hudson had some interesting things to say before the game, sort of tipping his hand as to his intentions and also why he felt he didn’t need to risk Woody. He said that if the All Whites could still be in this tie with 10-15 mins left in Lima then they had a plan. Well, after this game ‘still in it’ could mean down 1-0, which could be do-able. Given how much he likes to mimic a bit of Jose Mourinho that probably means putting a Fellaini-wig on Chris Wood and going looong. And, look, that sucks to watch in a Premier League game but if it gets us into the World Cup then bring it on.

You’ve got to say that Peru were a bit crap in Wellington. More than anything that was probably down to missing Paulo Guerrero, a man who was on the field for 1480 of their 1620 minutes of qualifying. He’s often the pivot of their attacks and without him they were a kinda short on imagination. However that doesn’t take the blame off of guys like Cueva and Edison Flores for playing well within what they’re capable of.

Definitely the Peruvian media have gone hard on the Guerrero angle. The new claim is that whatever the substance was that caused him to fail his test, his lawyer reckons it came from a tea-infusion he’d been drinking while sick with the flu. And it’s not only that they lost their main man, they also didn’t exactly have much time to prepare for what to do without him. So if they looked disjointed then there you go… but yeah, expected way more from Cueva in particular.

But that same Peruvian media has also kept it calm about their chances in the second leg. The players were all pumped for the opportunity to win this thing in Lima, this was no missed opportunity in their eyes. Ricardo Gareca complimented the kiwi defence and said some similar things. And the thing about underperforming players is that we all know they have the potential to be a whole lot better. The All Whites might have been close to their best case incarnation in Wellington – the only tr*mp card they have is Chris Wood… although that’s a rather massive boost to have available after a first-up draw.

It’s weird but both teams come out of this game thinking their chances of making it to Russia have increased.

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