The All Whites came close to the 2018 World Cup. Within a couple of goals of it, even. That’s a lot better than they did last time, losing 9-3 on aggregate to Mexico, but ultimately it’s the same result – Winston Reid still gets to take his July holidays in Ibiza or wherever. Hey, he’s earned them, fair play.

With Oceanian qualifying tending to be a Chris Wood sitter for the New Zealand side, and enough badass players on the rise to think it oughta stay that way, coming out on top of the OFC stakes again next time will again be the absolute minimum for NZ ahead of the 2022 World Cup. FIFA’s tournament expansion to 40 teams won’t kick in until 2026 so dominating Oceania won’t make for an automatic spot in the big show but fingers crossed we draw Asia or North & Central America in the inter-continental playoffs and she’ll be a much easier task. Shout out to the Socceroos… but we coulda beaten Honduras too, man.

Thinking forward to that next playoff, there are enough young and established players to think we’ll be able to chuck out a team with plenty of continuity from this latest lot. Yet at the same time we’ve already witnessed the retirement of Rory Fallon and Andy Durante while it’s highly unlikely that Shane Smeltz will stick around too much longer either. Stefan Marinovic and Ryan Thomas were just interesting dudes who’d come through the youth ranks four years ago and now they’re essential players – who else might emerge in the next few years? And who might, unexpectedly or not, fall away?

For curiosity’s sake, this is the team that started the 2013 playoff against Mexico in Mexico City:

GK - Glen Moss
LB - Tony Lochhead
CB - Tommy Smith
CB - Ivan Vicelich
CB - Andy Durante
RB - Leo Bertos
CM - Mike McGlinchey
CM - Jeremy Christie
LAM - Kosta Barbarouses
RAM - Jeremy Brockie
FW - Chris Wood

And that lot came with an outstanding bench of familiar names… but perhaps not the most competitive bench to take on the might of Mexico with:

Jake Butler
Ben Sigmund
Bill Tuiloma
Shane Smeltz
Rory Fallon
Marco Rojas
Tamati Williams
Chris James
Storm Roux
Craig Henderson
Aaron Clapham
Jacob Spoonley

Clearly they’d have looked a little better had Winston Reid been available or if Ryan Nelsen hadn’t retired at the start of the year. Still it’s maybe not the best sign that only 12 of that lot were in the squad that played Peru four years later. Four years isn’t that long in a football career, most top players get three to five shots at a World Cup campaign. Four years is also the difference between Chris Wood being an unproven Championship striker in his second season with Leicester and Chris Wood earning a £15m transfer to Burnley in the Premier League. Tommy Smith, Andrew Durante, Kosta Barbarouses and Mike McGlinchey have stayed on a solid trajectory since then. Marco Rojas has been up and down and now back up again. Storm Roux was made ineligible and then re-eligible and broke his leg in between. Lots can happen in four years.

So what might a 2022 World Cup Playoff look like for the All Whites? Hmm…

Best to start by looking at the squad as it is. Rory Fallon and Andrew Durante have just retired. Smeltzy will be 40 by the time of the next playoff and, to be honest, was kinda clinging on a bit here anyway. Durante played pretty well in that second leg in Peru but was no longer first choice and only getting slower. Fallon was semi-retired anyway and only back in the All Whites for his senior leadership amongst a fairly young squad. Glen Moss is very likely to join this trio but he’s still a worthy selection at this point and being a goalie he can still hang on into his late 30s if he’s up for it.

One name who isn’t on that list: Winston Reid. It’d take a madman to leave him out of the squad but… just sayin’: El Capitan will be 33 by the next playoff and, while that shouldn’t matter, you can’t say for certain that he won’t decide he needs to sacrifice the excessive travel schedules to prolong his club career. Plenty better players have retired from the international stuff at younger ages than that with better injury histories. The English footy club culture isn’t the most forgiving of international windows and Winnie’s deep within that, hearing those things from teammates and coaches every time a national team squad’s on the radar.

The All Whites can prolong this by taking a selective approach to selections (so to speak). Just pick him for the big ones and the games in Europe… which is sort of what’s been happening anyway – you’ve gotta be flexible with the bloke. But just saying we can’t go writing his name in permanent ink yet.

You’d have to say that Tommy Smith is a similar candidate. Right now those are Aotearoa’s two best defenders there and losing them would be devastating to the All Whites’ chances of competing with better teams. Luckily there are at least some damn fine defenders working their way up the ladder to eventually replace them.

As for everyone else? It all depends on club form and career progress. Clayton Lewis is good to go right now but a new national team manager might see things different. Yet take Scunthorpe up into the Championship and establish himself as a week-in week-out starter and suddenly he’s very hard to overlook. Meanwhile Jeremy Brockie will be 34 by the next playoff, old enough to have taken a step back and been surpassed by some of the new blood… or perhaps he’s still be banging them away in South Africa for fun in four years, possibly even at a bigger club.

Barring anything drastic, you’d imagine Chris Wood, Ryan Thomas and Stefan Marinovic are dead-set locks for any squad for the next decade. Football can be a tricky thing to predict, though. Marco Rojas can cop a few L’s in his club career and still fall back upon an A-League lifeline that should keep him in the All Whites mix perpetually. A few others don’t have the same luxuries.

Deklan Wynne is 22, Kip Colvey is 23, Dane Ingham is 18 and Storm Roux is 24. Only Roux is a regular for his club side and the entire quartet (add in Tommy Doyle if you want, he’s 25) is vulnerable to some new hotshot until they can step things up. Wynne and Colvey are currently with MLS clubs so the opportunities are there… but they could just as easily slip away if they run down these contracts without breaking into the first teams.

Will Bill Tuiloma finally be playing regular senior football in four years? How many promotions will Max Crocombe and Salford City have managed in that time? Can Kosta Barbarouses and Mike McGlinchey continue to hold down regular starting XI spots? Even regular squad spots? Will a 38 year old Glen Moss still be keen? Does Monty Patterson have a pro career ahead of him once he graduates from the Ipswich youth system? How will Mike Boxall’s MLS career be going in four years?

Thus without further ado, we present a Nichey Hypothetical All Whites Team for the 2022 World Cup Qualifying Intercontinental Playoffs… hooray! (And stress on the hypothetical, stay chill).

GOALKEEPERS

Stefan Marinovic
Jake Gleeson
Michael Woud

Yeah, nah, sorry Mossy. Didn’t really buy that you’d still be at it so as much as the experience would be nice to have around it shan’t be counted upon. Stefan Marinovic on the other hand, mate he’s a lock. By this time he’ll have had a couple years dominating the MLS scene with the Vancouver Whitecaps, a side which will have gone from strength to strength with the proliferation of kiwis in their midst. The All-Whitecaps nickname will earn international recognition beyond the pages of TNC. After being the hero in the penalty shootout that crowns the All-Whitecaps as champions in his fourth season with the team, Marinovic will again look all class at the Confederations Cup which leads to offers from the Premier League, Bundesliga and Serie A. He’s playing Champions League by the time the playoff squad is announced. For… umm… let’s say Inter Milan. That’d be fun.

Backing him up will be Jake Gleeson and Michael Woud, the former having recommitted himself to the cause after leaving the Portland Timbers. He jumps around between starting and sitting on the bench for a couple other MLS clubs before having a resurgent 2020 season with… how about Seattle, why not? Beats out his compatriot Marinovic for Save of the Year, denying some Canadian joker with an acrobatic diving tip over the crossbar as his Sounders took on those Whitecaps in a late-season clash.

Meanwhile Woud slowly makes his way through the Sunderland system, watching failed signings come and go ahead of him before getting his debut in a League Cup game. Sunderland manage to steady themselves in the Championship and, after a handful of first team games and some strong performances in preseason, Woud is beginning to earn some buzz as their possible next number one. He’s loaned out to a lower Championship side (Burton Albion) for a season and plays fantastic. By the time of this playoff he’s a regular on the bench and getting a few cup starts, having signed a new three year contract, with the press release comparing him to Jordan Pickford (now the England number one). He’s still only 22 years old in 2021.

Alternates: Max Crocombe, Nik Tzanev, Glen Moss, Zac Speedy, Keegan Smith

DEFENDERS

Michael Boxall
Sam Brotherton
Cory Brown
Kip Colvey
Dane Ingham
Winston Reid
Storm Roux
Bill Tuiloma
Deklan Wynne

Couldn’t do it not to pick Winston Reid. It’s been an odd few years for Winston at West Ham, burning through plenty more managers and injuries, but his consistent defensive heroism and the odd crucial goal continue to endear him to the fans. He doesn’t play many games in the first two years of the World Cup cycle, often inconveniently injured at the wrong time. Yet he sneaks the odd friendly in there and finally manages to play at a Confederations Cup in 2021, although his mate Tommy Smith has retired from internationals by then, hoping to extend his club career after a troubling knee injury. Can’t rely on Winnie to show up every time but he’s there when it matters. Just like before. Still the captain too, by the way.

Michael Boxall enjoys a couple fun years with Minnesota, playing every week and getting paid the good bucks despite Minny not exactly lighting the league on fire. The fans come to love their kiwi centre back… although his contract is close to running up when he’s named in this squad, with rumours around that the 33 year old might fancy a return to the Wellington Phoenix.

Dane Ingham emerges as a regular right back for the Brisbane Roar in the second half of the 2018-19 season and his tendency to chip in with the odd assist wins him a few local admirers. Storm Roux likewise, as he extends his stay with Central Coast in the A-League and is named their vice-captain in the 2021-22 campaign.

Sam Brotherton never breaks through at Sunderland. He disappears from All Whites squads for a while as he does the hard yards on a couple tough lower league loans before signing a one-year contract to go play in the MLS (probably for one of his old college coaches or something, makes sense). That goes well as injuries to others fast-track his first team chances and then with a new contract on the table, he instead opts to return to England where he finds himself a regular in the Championship, finally, for Fulham. He scores an 88th minute equalising header from a corner when he plays Sunderland.

Deklan Wynne does his thing at the All-Whitecaps, playing a couple games in the 2018 season before becoming a genuine first team member in 2019. Spoiler alert: the original Vancouver All-Whitecap is also the last remaining Vancouver All-Whitecap. Bill Tuiloma never quite manages to convince the Portland Timbers coaches that he’s a central midfielder good enough for their first team but an injury crisis means he’s asked to fill in at centre defence in 2018. Luckily he’s been playing there for the ressies already. He reinvents himself as a John O’Shea-type defensive utility (still capable of playing CM as well) and suddenly there’s that career he’s been hoping for ever since moving to Marseille back in the day.

Kip Colvey gets stuck in the reserve league in America for a season or two. It ain’t easy but he’s a trooper and eventually an MLS opportunity comes along. He only lasts one year in the big show before his contract expires and he’s released by San Jose but that’s when Anthony Hudson’s Colorado Rapids come along. Huddo and Kip’s reunion lasts about five games before Hudson, having spent two and a half years in Colorado, gets an eyebrow-raising offer from Guédiawaye in the Senegalese Premier League, but Kip’s already a solid gold star by then.

As for Cory Brown, the NZ age-grade international tears it up in his final year at college and is a hotly prized draft pick in the MLS. He’s picked up by the Los Angeles Galaxy and draws early comparisons as ‘The Next Ryan Nelsen’. Sure enough, he’s playing Premier League for Birmingham (who are back in the Premier League) within three years.

Alternates: Tommy Smith, Tom Doyle, Francis De Vries, Hunter Ashworth, Adam Mitchell, Andrew Blake, Luke Adams, Jack-Henry Sinclair & Themi Tzimopoulos

MIDFIELDERS

Clayton Lewis
Michael McGlinchey
James Musa
Matt Ridenton
Ryan Thomas

There’s no denying Ryan Thomas. A season that began with a strong showing at the 2017 Confederations Cup was followed by an even better start to the Eredivisie season and then the Peru games (taking us up to the current date). Well, suffice to say that Thommo does not slow down. He’s Zwolle’s best player over the whole season and while there’s talk of his moving to England or Spain, he ends up getting sold to Ajax where he wins the Dutch title in his first season (making amends with Ajax fans for dominating them in the KNVB Cup final a few years back). He only stays with Ajax one year before he’s linked very heavily with Tottenham Hotspur. That doesn’t happen but instead he moves to Valencia where he fits right in from the beginning. He’s a superstar by the time of the next intercontinentals.

James Musa is still a dependable midfielder for Sporting Kansas City in four years. His consistency keeps him in the All Whites picture and he and Thommo eventually start to form an impressive partnership in midfield in the big games. Clayton Lewis chips in well when needed too, having helped Scunthorpe get promoted to the Championship in his second season there. He’s still with them in four years having established himself as a key player in that midfield.

Then there’s the two Phoenix lads, still in Wellington and still doing their thing. Mike McGlinchey is one of the four remaining players from the 2010 World Cup squad but remains a valued contributor at the Nix, while Ridenton finally set himself up as a regular starter in 2017-18 and never looked back. Neither is considered first choice with the national team by this time but neither would be hesitated upon if needed either. Dependable midfielders are hard to find.

Alternates: Alex Rufer, Moses Dyer, Joe Bell, Michael Den Heijer & Sarpreet Singh

FORWARDS

Myer Bevan
Jeremy Brockie
Stuart Holthusen
Monty Patterson
Marco Rojas
Chris Wood

Ain’t gotta worry about Chris Wood, he’s not the kind of striker that’ll lose it early. Pace isn’t game, his game is about strength and positioning and that battlin’ spirit. Fast forward four years and he’ll have logged plenty more goals for Burnley and a few for Everton as well after following his old gaffer Sean Dyche there – Dyche getting the Toffees gig two years later than Everton had initially hoped but they got him in the end. Chris Wood is the new Romelu Lukaku. Soon enough he’s getting linked to the big clubs… though only in the way that Winston Reid’s often linked with the big clubs.

Marco Rojas has a mixed first campaign with Heerenveen but really begins to find his feet in his second term. At the end of his initial contract he fields pretty serious offers from Melbourne Victory and the Wellington Phoenix but decides to keep on trucking in Holland, re-signing with Heerenveen before getting sold to Feyenoord. Europa League footy there, mate.

Monty Patterson finds opportunities rare at Ipswich but a League One loan at Peterborough puts him on the map. He’s offered a new deal at Ipswich and declines it to join Blackburn instead (who are now back in the Champo). Following in the footsteps of Ryan Nelson, never a bad move (unless coaching Toronto FC is your thing).

As for Stuart Holthusen, the former NZ U20s striker is currently scoring buckets for the Uni of Akron and that sort of form can get you drafted. But Stu won’t do that, he’ll follow the Sam Brotherton model of jumping into a Premier League academy. He never quite broke through at Watford but a loan deal at Sheffield Wednesday turned into a permanent and by the time of the playoff he’s playing as a backup striker in the Championship.

Striker is probably the position that changes the most from 2017 to 2021, with Rory Fallon and Shane Smeltz retiring and Kosta Barbarouses being slightly controversially left out. Holthusen gets Kosta’s spot but Jeremy Brockie, still playing in South Africa except for Mamelodi Sundowns now, gets the Wise Old Veteran spot that Smeltz and Fallon left open. He’s still scoring goals. Even scored a few for New Zealand, with a double in qualifying against Tahiti.

Then there’s Myer Bevan. He rounds out the squad having spent a couple solid seasons in the MLS with Vancouver Whitecaps before shockingly being sold to Borussia Dortmund. Despite initial media scepticism, he manages to sneak into the matchday squad most weeks and comes off the bench twice in his first season in the Champions League. By this point Bevan is closing in on 15 goals for the All Whites having ravaged folks in the Nations Cup and has become Chris Wood’s regular striking companion.

Chris Wood, meanwhile, has already shattered Vaughan Coveny’s All Whites scoring record and is on pace to score more than 50 international goals before he retires.

Alternates: Kosta Barbarouses, Tyler Boyd, Max Mata, Noah Billingsley, Jai Ingham & Callum McCowatt

Full Squad:

Stefan Marinovic (Inter Milan), Jake Gleeson (Seattle Sounders), Michael Woud (Sunderland), Deklan Wynne (Vancouver Whitecaps), Kip Colvey (Colorado Rapids), Storm Roux (Central Coast Mariners), Dane Ingham (Brisbane Roar), Winston Reid (West Ham United), Michael Boxall (Minnesota United), Cory Brown (Birmingham City), Bill Tuiloma (Portland Timbers), Sam Brotherton (Fulham), Ryan Thomas (Valencia), Michael McGlinchey (Wellington Phoenix), Matt Ridenton (Wellington Phoenix), James Musa (Sporting Kansas City), Clayton Lewis (Scunthorpe United), Myer Bevan (Borussia Dortmund), Jeremy Brockie (Mamelodi Sundowns), Stuart Holthusen (Sheffield Wednesday), Monty Patterson (Blackburn Rovers), Marco Rojas (Feyenoord) & Chris Wood (Everton)

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