All Whites vs Curaçao: 692 Days Later...
What is there to be gained from a couple of sneaky friendlies at this time? For starters there’s the obvious one of ending a 692 day hiatus between fixtures for the men’s national team of Aotearoa, that’s a pretty significant one. Then there’s the chance to build on the momentum of the Olympic campaign, with so many crossover players in key positions, and towards the Olympics qualifiers which are due to be held in Qatar early next month. A few games in Bahrain is good prep for that. Plus there’s the stuff about keeping busy and forging tactical connections on the pitch between players. And then, on the simplest possible level, if there are games to be played then there are goals to be scored and wins to be earned.
International games have been rare for the All Whites. International wins are even rarer. Gotta savour them. For about an hour the All Whites were straight-up impressive, putting pressure on Curaçao early in their possessions and keeping up a regular goal threat. They were strong in the midfield and mostly untroubled at the back. The last half hour saw a tactical change from Curaçao and some fatigue setting in for the New Zealand team but a couple nice moves from Danny Hay helped them lock it up even after conceding a veeery soft goal to allow their opponents back into it. A 2-1 win makes the first of Hay’s managerial tenure, the first for the All Whites in general since a beating India 2-1 in June 2018, and only the fourth from outside their confederation since 2014. Danny Hay now has as many wins against non-Oceania teams as Anthony Hudson.
Bit of a surprise in the way that the All Whites lined up. Michael Boxall had been intended to start but wasn’t feeling too well so he dropped to the bench. Not quite clear if that affected the formation or not but they set up for kickoff in a 4-4-2 with a diamond midfield which is a new one from the Haymaker. Not the 4-3-3 he used on his first tour nor the 5-4-1/5-3-2 shapes that he experimented with at the Olympics.
Seems the reason for that was to be able to use Joe Bell and Sarpreet Singh in arguably their best roles at the points of that diamond... while Marko Stamenic and Matt Garbett both debuted in the middle of them. Garbett was a breakthrough dude at the Olympics and has since moved on to Torino (where he’s playing regularly for their U19 team) while Stamenic’s Olympic campaign wasn’t quite what he’d hoped due to a late arrival and a suspension that meant he missed the knockout game but he’s playing well on loan at HB Køge right now.
Chris Wood and Callum McCowatt started together up front. The target man and the link guy. Libby Cacace and debutant Niko Kirwan lined up in the fullback roles. Nando Pijnaker and Bill Tuiloma were the central defenders. And the trickiest spot to predict, the starting goalkeeper’s gig, went to Stefan Marinovic. Same bloke who started in Danny Hay’s first game in charge. Stef had certainly been the incumbent after starting 24 consecutive All Whites games during Anthony Hudson’s time in charge but since then it’s gone: Max Crocombe, Max Crocombe, Nik Tzanev, Michael Woud, Stefan Marinovic, Michael Woud... and now Stefan Marinovic. It’s no longer a cut and dried thing and Oli Sail will come into contention at some point too. Exciting depth there for a position where only one guy gets to play per game.
Meanwhile Curaçao weren’t quite at the level they were touted to be at. All those heritage players and dual-nationals that have been in or around the group in the last year (this is a team that’s played eight times already in 2021 compared to the All Whites’ one game and that’s despite Curaçao not being able to compete at the Gold Cup), not too many of them showed up for this tour. It was mostly the regulars. The Bacuna Bros. Vurnon Anita. Cuco Martina. Still a strong squad but nothing that was out of range for the All Whites. No Tahith Chong or Armando Obispo, sadly.
However they do have a very famous manager:Patrick Kluivert. Someone who Danny Hay probably remembers for having scored a couple times for Barcelona in Hay’s lone Champions League appearance though doubtful the memory goes two ways. Kluivert has spent time in charge of this team in the past but is only there currently as an interim after Guus Hiddinck contracted covid and then subsequently retired from management. The covid happened back in May though the retirement only happened a month ago. So they’ve been in a holding pattern for most of the year. Nothing compared to the New Zealand team to be fair but that probably goes a way towards explaining why they looked a wee bit underdone in this game.
Because the tactical duel began with Curaçao. They persisted with trying to play the ball out from the back and the All Whites were set up nicely to counter that with a high press. Wood and especially McCowatt from the front line with Singh and the two midfielders able to drift and pick their moments... then Joe Bell was lurking to pick off the loose passes that made it out of that third of the field. It worked wonders, for real. The All Whites looked energetic and aggressive. They immediately came out and controlled the territory battle.
Then they won a free kick about 30-ish yards out after Cacace got some sprigs scraped down his heel trying to secure a loose ball clearance and with two fellas standing over the dead ball either Bill Tuiloma was gonna shoot or Joe Bell was gonna chip it in to the back post and it was Billy T who struck it and a convenient deflection off the wall took it past Curaçao’s debutant goalie, 19 year old PSV reserve Tyrick Bodak. Take ‘em how they come. Bill Tuiloma’s first international goal coming in his 27th international cap.
Bodak was one of three debutants for Curaçao, by the way. Nathan Holder and Arenchelo Leito were the other two, both also teenagers. Meanwhile with Kelvin Kalua getting a run off the bench late on there were four debutants for Aotearoa.
That goal was nice enough. An early strike which came amidst a sustained spell of positive territory. But the second goal was much more representative of the game itself.
The move starts with CUR in possession, trying to play the ball out from defence. They almost advance over the halfway line but Singh pushes up and Anita instead pulls back and passes back to Martina who has to go back to his goalie under pressure from McCowatt. Notice Chris Wood calling McCowatt up here to maintain the press…
Twice the ball comes back to Martina, and twice McCowatt has him in trouble and he has to return it to Bodak. The third time the keeper instead plays it out to the right to Leandro Bacuna... except he’s quickly closed down by both McCowatt and especially Stamemic…
Bacuna can either play back to his goalie for a fourth time in a row or he can play it up the line. He chooses the latter, however Cacace is instantly onto that one and Nepomuceno collects the ball facing his own goal with Cacace and then soon Stamenic in his face. There’s no option square to bail him out and he loses possession…
Bacuna could have regained it but inexplicably misses the ball entirely, staying down afterwards though the ref played on (if there was a foul it was on Nepomuceno by Stamenic tbf), which allows Stamenic to feed it into space where McCowatt is now running. CUR are a man short and McCowatt slides it across to an open Chris Wood whose left-footed first time finish thus marked his 25th international goal…
It was that selective high press played to perfection, shutting down the passing lanes and forcing a team out to one side where they could then overload them and win the ball back, then attacking swiftly in transition. Everyone lurking in alignment. There were heaps of examples of similar intentions yet this was the one time it all clicked.
At which point Curaçao had played a little over 120 minutes during this window and had scored zero and conceded six. Their body language was bad. And they seemed committed to playing it out from the back even though the pitch wasn’t flat enough to help them and they were moving it too slow to beat the NZ trap. Didn’t help that there was some mad inconsistent refereeing throughout the match. He let most of the soft stuff go which was cool but then there were some real heavy challenges that inexplicably got ignored. It’s tough on a pitch where you can’t always trust your touch. There are gonna be more 50/50 challenges in a game like that so to not feel the protection from the ref is a worry, though at least it went both ways.
Without having watched the game against Bahrain (didn’t have the time, sorry ‘bout that), it does sound like it was a much closer game than 4-0 suggests. Curaçao could easily have been leading at the half and it was only 1-0 after 83 minutes. One of the goals was a keeper’s howler (maybe why Bodak played the next one). It was one of those days... all the more reason for the frustration.
Anyway, a flatter pitch and the All Whites might’ve been out of sight after an hour. Chris Wood had about four other chances a couple of which he ballooned to go with the one he dragged in the second minute and also a heavy shot straight at the keeper soon after his goal. Goes to show that goal of his was silkier than he’ll get credit for given the lurking possibility of a bobble. Sarpreet Singh looked really good in the first half collecting the ball in the pocket, though he maybe pushed the final pass a tad early. Both fullbacks were doing good things in attack as well... while the defence was hardly troubled until a Stefan Marinovic save at his inside post just before half-time off Jarchinio Antonia.
That came about due to fatigue. Last five mins or so of the first half it was obvious that the kiwis were suffering in the heat (there were drinks breaks so you know it was toasty) with that high pressing style they were employing. But the HT breather did them wonders and they came back out with renewed energy and an added emphasis on their set piece dominance and really should have been out of sight with half an hour to go. That wastefulness, that lack of ruthlessness, is part of why we can’t get carried away with the performance from the All Whites. Good but not great. They left the door open.
A belated switch to a back three by Kluivert then changed the momentum. Hay had already brought on Elijah Just and Andre De Jong to freshen things up (23 mins for ADJ here is more than double what he’s played in AmaZulu’s first nine games this season – Father Fred mentioned that AmaZulu is “a good place to ply your trade” when asked about it on comms, which is probably true but it’d be better if Andre played more) but that same fatigue as we saw late in the first half was setting in again now and the extra Curaçao midfielder made a big difference.
Pretty soon they pulled one back. Joe Bell was seemingly fouled in the build up. Libby Cacace was a bit slow to react. Niko Kirwan completely missed a defensive header. Nando Pijnaker was late to close down his man. And then Rangelo Janga whalloped it perfectly into the near top corner. Super finish combined with a series of tired defensive actions and a debatable tackle that wasn’t whistled.
It was a conflagration of unfortunate happenings. But it was a goal all the same and it led to a sweaty last twenty-ish minutes, during which the All Whites themselves threw on Tommy Smith to match the back three – Smithy was a great introduction to the game, adding some of that veteran leadership and composure at the back – and then later on Michael Boxall got a run for an injured Bill Tuiloma while Kelvin Kalua debuted in place of Niko Kirwan. Kirwan had started so confidently but once the lactic acid set in he struggled. The missed header was one thing, he also got beaten in his individual battle with winger Antonia about three separate times. Kalua had the fresh legs. He didn’t have much to do but he did what he needed to.
Stefan Marinovic made a solid late save. It was a game that on another day might have slipped away and if it had then the lack of a third goal would have come back into stark focus. But they did enough on this day. Again, international wins against non-OFC teams don’t come easy and they’re all worth celebrating. A young team learned a few valuable lessons here, figuring out how to win in situations like this. These are the early days of what we hope will be a golden new era of All Whites footy and this was a solid win to advance the cause. Ka pai, fellas. Now let’s see how they back it up on Wednesday morning.
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