All Whites vs The Gambia: Squad Yarns
All the talk about this latest All Whites squad has been about which bloke is unvaccinated and that’s largely because there’s not a whole lot else going on here. The Aotearoa men’s national team will face The Gambia on Wednesday 17 November NZT, five days after an unofficial game against an as-of-yet unnamed opposition. Another funky game seeking to carry on the flow of momentum that began with the Curaçao and Bahrain matches. Another chance for Danny Hay to refine a few things. Another chance for the core of the team to hang out and enjoy each other’s company on and off the field.
This camp will also take place in the Middle East – the UAE this time instead of Bahrain. Winston Reid is hanging around as a mentor again (he’s based in the country anyway working up his fitness). And there are only three changes from the squad that played in October. It’s all kinda routine... is this what other countries get to feel like all the time? Usually All Whites squads are so scarce that they’re a big event as we finally get to see where everybody stands in the pecking order. But it’s only been a month since the last squad and nobody’s coming out of the woodwork in that short space of time.
Hence there’s been a lot of vax talk. NZ Football aren’t gonna name the dude but obviously it’s Nik ‘Personal Reasons’ Tzanev. Disappointing there but we’re all on different paths, right? Tzanev lives and plays in England and has done for several years – can’t be thinking about his status in relation to Aotearoa’s vaccine push at the moment. He’s not a part of that. While local teams like the Wellington Phoenix and NZ Breakers have been able to brag about fully vaxed squads (the Breakers having been forced to cut Tai Webster because of how his unvaxxed status would hamper his availability in some Aussie states – though TW’s since gotten his shot in order to sign in Lithuania), English Premier League clubs are well shy of that. As of two weeks ago, the PL confirmed that only 68% of players are fully vaccinated and one in five hasn’t had a shot at all. We’re talking, on average, two players in every starting line-up. That’s the wider environment that Tzanev is a part of.
This is just one of those things that the All Whites have gotta deal with when drawing upon players from all over the world. 12 different nations are represented in the clubs of this squad’s players (not including free agent Kelvin Kalua or Jamie Searle in Wales since Swansea play in the English leagues). Plus they’re playing in a neutral territory and it’s the United Arab Emirates where that imperative has come from. This from the press release...
“All of the squad are vaccinated against COVID-19, as is required for playing and training in Abu Dhabi. New Zealand Football has stressed the importance of vaccination to all players in contention for the team as well as informed them that they risk missing out on future selection if they are unvaccinated. New Zealand Football will not be releasing the vaccination status of individual players not selected for the team.”
And that’s the right approach from NZF. Vaccination is an individual choice... it just so happens there’s a right and a wrong choice. But you can’t make that choice for people. The data suggests that once it becomes too inconvenient to be unvaccinated (job mandates, social gathering limits, etc.), vaccine hesitancy starts to wane. Tell the players that, given the state of the planet, being unvaccinated is a huge risk to their international career (let along the health stuff) and leave it up to them. Nik Tzanev will probably come around, he’s a bright lad. If not we’ve got a lot of decent goalies at the moment.
There’s a genuine trend of kiwi sportsfolk coalescing in the UAE at the moment. The Blackcaps are over there for the T20 World Cup right now and if they make the semi-finals then they’ll be playing in Abu Dhabi the day before the All Whites’ practice game. Abu Dhabi is also where Dan Hooker fought in UFC 267 last weekend and his corner included boxer Hemi Ahio who trains out of the same gym as Hooker (the outstanding City Kickboxing crew) and had a convincing win in Dubai two weeks ago. Plus Winston Reid’s already based there as he works on his conditioning in camp with English physio/personal trainer Chris Bowman who is based in Dubai. Bowman has worked with a heap of Premier League players so easy to see how Reid mighta caught that connection.
Worth noting that Aussie/NZ based players were not considered again. Also there are some slippery slopes with a few of the club timelines here. The FIFA window runs from November 8-16, Monday through to the following Tuesday. And considering that the All Whites game vs The Gambia is on that Tuesday, the last day of the window, that may cause some trouble.
Remember how Sarpreet Singh left the last window early because his team had a Friday night game? Well, the MLS Playoffs begin that following weekend and both Bill Tuiloma and Michael Boxall are likely to be needed there and you may recall what a tantrum the Minnesota United coach threw about Boxall’s availability before the Olympics. As it happens Boxall wasn’t fit enough to play until after the tournament so Danny Hay’s gotta cop some of that too but point still stands.
Also, The Gambia will be the last fixture of the year. Might even be the last chance to play before the March 2022 Oceania World Cup qualifiers in Qatar, although there is a late-January window that they could try take advantage of. It’s also the last proper fixture for the Gambian side (known as The Scorpions) before the African Cup of Nations in January – the first time the nation has ever qualified for that tournament. Coached by Belgian Tom Saintfiet, they’ll have a squad of players spread out mostly all over Europe. Omar Colley of Sampdoria, Sulayman Marreh of Gent, and Bubacarr Sanneh of AGF will probably be key players.
GOALKEEPERS
Stefan Marinovic - Hapoel Nof HaGalil, ISR (26 caps/0 goals)
Jamie Searle - Swansea City, WAL (0/0)
Michael Woud - Almere City FC, NED (3/0)
Wasn’t sure if it’d be worth doing the usual positional breakdowns of this squad given how it’s basically the same as the last one. But there are a few curious differences so we’ll see what we can rustle up. Marinovic and Woud shared starter’s duties in the last camp and both are every-game starters for their clubs. That’s something you can also say about Nik Tzanev whose ability with ball at feet is something that sets him apart (Woud is good in that area but not as reliable as Tzanev, while for Marinovic that’s his main weakness) but he’s not here, so it goes.
Jamie Searle is here instead. Searle worked with Hay at the Olympics as Woud’s backup and the 20 year old continues to rise nicely in stature at Swansea City. He’s their U23s goalie and signed a new contact back in June. This is his first All Whites call-up. The top three GK choices are obvious but the top three aren’t always gonna be available so handy to have a guy like Searle knocking on the door. Max Crocombe and maybe even Matthew Gould would’ve been other Euro-based options. Fun fact: Gould is the son of Jonathan Gould, former Celtic goalie and Welly Nix GK coach, and his sister Louise is part of the media team for Celtic these days where kiwi Liv Chance now plays. Not sure if that’s particularly interesting to you or not but gotta fill space here somehow.
However that doesn’t mean that Searle is fourth choice overall because it’s also been revealed that Hay requested a release for Oli Sail from the Wellington Phoenix. Sail has been called up before but is uncapped. That request was ultimately declined as it’d mean that Sail misses the rest of the Nix’s preseason yet it does show that he’s very much on the radar for the national team... as he should be. Alex Paulsen, Sail’s backup, was part of the Olympic squad as well.
DEFENDERS
Michael Boxall - Minnesota United, USA (35/0)
Liberato Cacace - Sint-Truidense, BEL (5/0)
Francis De Vries - IFK Värnamo, SWE (0/0)
Kelvin Kalua – Eastern Suburbs, NZ (2/0)
Niko Kirwan – Calcio Padova, ITA (2/1)
Nando Pijnaker - FC Helsingør, DEN (3/0)
Tommy Smith - Colchester United, ENG (40/2)
Bill Tuiloma - Portland Timbers, USA (27/1)
Two players missing from the defensive group. Dalton Wilkins and Nikko Boxall both played on the weekend but have also both been managing injuries. Boxall for example was seemingly rushed back after missing three games immediately after All Whites duty because it was SJK’s final match of the year and they were trying to earn a third-placed finish. Which they did, Boxall playing the full thing in a 5-2 win over Inter Turku. Wilkins meanwhile got injured before the last two NZ games so wasn’t able to be a part of those. He has played for Kolding since but was sent off on the weekend in stoppage time. Neither of them actually played against Curaçao or Bahrain. No need to risk them.
Nikko Boxall hasn’t been directly replaced, Danny Hay opting for an extra striker instead. That last squad was too defender-heavy anyway. Wilkins has been swapped out for Francis de Vries. Hell of a week for that guy, he got his first national team selection and then celebrated by scoring a goal and keeping a clean sheet for Värnamo as they booked promotion to the top flight in Sweden. De Vries has been based in Sweden for a few years now and before that he was part of the short-lived Vancouver All-Whitecaps back when they had Stefan Marinovic, Deklan Wynne, and Myer Bevan in the wider club all at the same time. Granted, only Marinovic ever played MLS for the club.
FDV also featured for Canterbury United a couple years ago where he played mostly as a central defender or defensive midfielder... though for Värnamo he’s now very clearly a left fullback (same as Dalton Wilkins). Someone with deceptively quick pace and a beautiful delivery into the box. Very good technical player, always has been, and quite a clever dude too. Love seeing a player from outside the regulars rewarded for some excellent team form/achievements.
Other than that it’s all the usuals. Been a bit annoyed that Nando Pijnaker hasn’t played more for Helsingør since joining on loan but all the other defenders are week-in week-outers for their clubs. Except Kelvin Kalua who doesn’t have one – no updates to offer on his European trial quest. Michael Boxall is a first choice CB, interesting to see who Hay picks alongside him. In four games so far Hay has picked a different CB combo every time: Reid/Boxall vs Ireland, Tuiloma/Smith vs Lithuania, Tuiloma/Pijnaker vs Curaçao, and Boxall/Pijnaker vs Bahrain. Plenty of room for a fifth combination here.
Also there’s pressure on Francis de Vries to sneak on off the bench because it’s unlikely we see Jamie Searle chucked straight in so he’s the only real candidate to extend the All Whites’ trend of offering at least one debut in each of their last eight matches... immediately after Anthony Hudson only handed out one debut in his final ten matches. That’s called freshening up the player pool, amigos.
MIDFIELDERS
Joe Bell - Viking FK, NOR (4/0)
Matthew Garbett - Torino, ITA (2/0)
Sarpreet Singh - SSV Jahn Regensburg, GER (7/1)
Marko Stamenic - HB Køge, DEN (2/0)
The All Whites used two different midfield shapes in the last tour. The first game saw a diamond four while the second reverted to the more usual forward-pointing triangle. However they set up, the personnel will be easy to guess because there ain’t exactly an abundance of options. Ryan Thomas remains out for personal reasons as he deals with recurring injuries at PSV (plus he’s got a young family to consider during a pandemic – his wife gave birth to their second kid at the start of the year). Gianni Stesness is Australian again. Alex Rufer and Clayton Lewis are quarantine-tied.
Luckily the four guys that have been picked – and Eli Just can play as the ten as well... in fact he did against Bahrain after Singh left camp early – are all in fantastic form for their club sides. Joe Bell and Sarpreet Singh need no explanations, surely you’ve been keeping up with Flying Kiwis every week. Marko Stamenic is on loan at HB Køge and has hugely impressed as a CDM there as he waits out his chance to play for the FC Copenhagen first team again. He did have to be subbed after a worrying head knock two weeks ago and missed their latest game as a result. Assuming that he’s all good now if he’s been picked.
As for Matty Garbett, he’s plugging away for the Torino U19s where he’s scored twice in two games and seems to be playing the same central midfield position he’s been used in by Hay both at the Olympics and for the All Whites last month. Garbs was a striker at the U17 World Cup a few years back – can’t argue with the versatility.
FORWARDS
Joseph Champness - Giresunspor, Turkey (1/0)
Elliot Collier - Chicago Fire, USA (2/0)
Andre de Jong - AmaZulu FC, SAF (6/1)
Elijah Just - FC Helsingør, DEN (4/0)
Callum McCowatt - FC Helsingør, DEN (3/1)
Chris Wood - Burnley FC, ENG (59/25)
Hey look it’s Elliot Collier. Always fun to get an EC sighting... gotta be honest there haven’t been hardly any of them recently for the Chicago Fire. Collier had a good run of games for Chicago last year when he felt like he was on the verge of a breakout game for about two months straight but those goals never arrived and these days he’s lucky if he gets two minutes off the bench. 17 appearances this season but only seven of them were for more than 15 minute cameos. He’s played 33 total minutes in the last two and a half months of footy.
Collier’s a deeply misunderstood player. At 6’4 people expect a Chris Wood type target man but really he’s a skilful left winger who likes to run at players. Having said that, the stats aren’t pretty. Games played are misleading because of all the short sub stints but 1 goal and 2 assists in 1750 minutes over his career with Chicago is adding up against him. All of which is to say that while he does play at a decent level it’s a tad surprising to see him plucked back up for this tour. Collier was involved in Hay’s first squad and he does offer something different, so it could’ve been a case of him not being available last time.
Although Danny Hay’s not averse to offering an international lifeline to out of form players because Andre De Jong plays even less for his South African club than Elliot Collier does in America. Both of them are here. Both of them probably need to be somewhere else come the next club transfer window. Joey Champness is another who hardly plays for his club but in his case he’s still easing his way in for Giresunspor and he did score a goal for them off the bench not so long ago (EC’s lone MLS goal came in 2019 while ADJ has yet to score in the PSL).
That lack of form is offset by the fact that those guys are backups to the main three of Eli Just, Callum McCowatt, and of course Christopher Wood. Just and McCowatt are irrepressible and they seem to feed off each other on the pitch. Wood just scored a banger for Burnley after a wee dry spell and at this point every opportunity to play for the All Whites is an opportunity for him to break Vaughan Coveney’s all-time scoring record of 29 goals. Probably won’t do it here but the OFC qualifiers in Qatar should be a happy hunting ground. And given how much international footy The Woodsman has had to miss on account of how we don’t play much international footy, he’s more than deserving of running up the stats in that tournament should it come to pass.
However, do still feel, same as last time, that there are a few unlucky fellas left out of the attacking group. Ryan De Vries is doing pretty well in Ireland. Joel Stevens also played his part in getting IFK Värnamo promoted. Logan Rogerson just had a fairly successful loan spell in Finland. All can feel relatively hard done by especially since their seasons are also coming to an end now so they won’t be able to push their cases any further for another 3-4 months.
Won’t suggest Max Mata for that group though. Once again zero USL players have been selected, that’s despite the season’s finishing up for all but playoff-bound James Musa and Noah Billingsley. The impression last time was that Hay ignored them because that comp, as a second tier comp, doesn’t pause for international windows. Now it feels more like Danny Hay just thinks that competition is shite. On that count... he wouldn’t be entirely wrong. More of a showcase for getting an MLS deal than anything (for players as well as clubs hoping for expansion opportunities). Sam Brotherton had to leave his USL team last year because they volunteered to be relegated.
Anyway, that’s the squad. Hoping for another positive result against The Gambia, then we’ll see if we can’t get some (weaker) European and South American games next time before the Oceania WCQ’s and then we can hit for the cycle by beating a team from every confederation within the space of half a year. Bet that’s never happened before.
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