OlyWhites at the 2024 Paris Olympics: Getting The W vs Guinea
If we’re being honest, there wasn’t a heap of encouraging omens surrounding this NZ men’s Olympic football team. The squad announcement was delayed as they haggled with clubs over player releases. When it did arrive, it arrived without names like Marko Stamenic or Matt Dibley-Dias, while overage blokes such as Chris Wood and Liberato Cacace were also denied availability. Two of the overage players, Joe Bell and Michael Boxall, stayed at their clubs until the last possible moment therefore only arrived in France a couple days before the first match.
Ben Old was allowed to play despite his big money move to Saint-Étienne... until he tweaked an ankle and they held him back. NZ Football has only officially ruled him out of the first game, hoping that he can recover and join them later (he’s still with ASSE as it stands but helpfully it’s a very short trip). Riley Bidois suffered a hamstring injury which ended his Olympic venture a few days out from kickoff. As for warm-up games, they only seemed to have one. It was a 3-1 loss to Uzbekistan in which they conceded two late goals.
Lots of little things there chipping away at hope and expectation. But it was still a good squad with plenty of self-confidence that Darren Bazeley had at his disposal, and a strong performance in the opening game against Guinea would make all of those preparation, selection, and injury worries irrelevant. It’d also give them a shot at repeating what the previous men’s Olympic footy side achieved in Tokyo. In a group with France, USA, and Guinea... you’ve gotta be beating Guinea if you’re aiming for the second round. Of course, Guinea were thinking the exact same thing about us... and a draw wasn’t going to suit either team.
Thus it’s a wonderful thing to be able to say that the Aotearoa side emerged victorious. We won. Goals from Matt Garbett and Ben Waine earned a 2-1 result that gives NZ a genuine opportunity to try sneak into the knockouts. Even if we avoid future prospects and keep it in the present, this win was only the second ever by a kiwi men’s Olympic team – following on from the 1-0 win against South Korea three years ago. Gotta celebrate a rare occurrence, gotta acknowledge an U23 footy team that rose to the occasion.
Coach Baze rolled with a positive line-up for this game, shrugging off the option of a pessimistic back five in favour of getting more proactive attacking ability on the pitch. Alex Paulsen was in goal. Tyler Bindon had to mix it up at right back with Finn Surman and Michael Boxall in the middle and Sam Sutton out left. Joe Bell anchored the midfield along with captain Matt Garbett and Sarpreet Singh operating a little further forward. Lachlan Bayliss made his first proper appearance for a New Zealand team on the right wing with Jay Herdman wide left. Ben Waine stood at the top of a 4-2-3-1 formation (Garbett and Singh roamed a bit but that’s a close enough indication of the starting shape). No Old or Bidois as previously reported... there was also no Jesse Randall on the bench after he scored the goal in the Uzbekistan warm-up. That meant all three outfield alternates made it into the matchday squad (Bayliss, Liam Gillion, and Isaac Hughes).
Guinea’s three overage players were all midfielders: Naby Keita (Werder Bremen), Abfoulaye Toure (Le Havre), and Amadou Diawara (Anderlecht). They all started but behind them was a back five comprised of U23s which left them with some weird balance. When the kiwis pressed high, Guinea looked all sorts of vulnerable and turned the ball over several times. Yet then when they did manage to get the ball into their experienced midfield, the counter-attack was always on because those Guinea lads had pace for days. The kiwis couldn’t keep up... although Surman, Bindon, and Garbett all compensated with some excellently timed sliding challenges.
That was the pattern through the cautious initial stage of the game. After about a dozen minutes though, the OlyWhites began to create a few chances. Boxall side-footed one past the far post on the end of a Herdman free kick. Singh smashed one over the top from inside the area. Then Sam Sutton went dashing in behind onto a Garbett ball over the top which ended up with him taking a tumble over the Guinea goalie. He was flagged offside but the VAR said: “hold on a sec, bro”. One of the CBs had lagged to keep him on so the referee took a look at the screen and then determined that Sutton had been fouled. Penalty. Very fortunate one since Sutts kinda initiated the contact by sticking his toe onto a heavy touch that was never going to lead to anything. But you know how these things go. Freeze frames and isolated incidents. Matt Garbett stepped up to take the spot kick and he dragged it wide of the target... easy come, easy go. Ah but roughly fifty seconds later, Garbs intercepted a pass out from that same keeper (20yo Soumaila Sylla, on the books with Reims in France) and charged into the penalty box, skipping past a challenge and slotting home the opening goal. Bingo. Instant amends.
In between those moments, Ben Waine had a good look trying to chip the keeper. Soon afterwards he could have set up a second if he’d been able to pick out Herdman in the middle of the area after drawing the keeper out of position. Both of those chances were created by Sarpreet Singh who was doing typical Sarpreet Singh things, drifting around and playing puppetmaster. Not that this was one-way traffic or anything. The NZers were sharp at the back but had a tendency to defend very narrow, especially Bindon with his central defensive instincts showing through, which led to slow close-outs that further exposed the pace gap between the two sides. There were some sketchy moments. Algassime Bah should have probably tied things up late in the half. Always sorta felt like Guinea had a goal in them.
NZ started the second half brightly yet a string of sloppy choices in the attacking third kept them from creating the quality of chances they should have gotten. That led to the depressing moment on 62’ when Guinea equalised after that narrow back four was again caught sliding too slowly and then Boxall slipped over in the area to allow Aliou Balde to score. That moment didn’t last because it turned out there had been an offside earlier in the play. A pretty big offside too. But the warning was not heeded. Ten minutes later, Amadou Diawara curled one inside the post from distance. Paulsen was late to react with his vision obstructed. By that stage it had been coming. Deserved equaliser. Twenty minutes left for either team to really go for it.
It took less than five minutes and it was Aotearoa that struck. You beauty. Always love a rapid response to a set-back. So much good stuff came from Singh drifting around and instigating for NZ and he was up to those same tricks here, though it was Joe Bell who flipped the clever pass forward to Lachie Bayliss. Slight hesitation from his marker allowed Bayliss to slip into the box where he flipped a square ball to Ben Waine who lashed it into the net. That’s how it’s done.
We then immediately saw two substitutions, the first subs of the day from Baze, with Oskar van Hattum and Liam Gillion swapping in for the two wingers. Alex Paulsen had to make a brilliant double save, then Lukas Kelly-Heald replaced Garbett to signal a switch to the closer’s formation: LKH popping alongside Surman and Boxall in a back three. From there the lads still had to fight through eleven minutes of stoppage time (yeah they’re doing the long injury time audits again – though if you think that’s excessive, check out what happened in Morocco vs Argentina), so Singh and Waine posted up in the corner to repeatedly waste some time. Bell also volunteered for a yellow card to stop a counter. Surman won about a hundred headers. 2-1 final score. Got ‘em.
You want a Player of the Day suggestion? That’s easier said than done, mate. Sarpreet Singh was excellent throughout but then so was Matt Garbett, who scored a crucial goal and had a difficult role that included a whole heap more defensive mahi than usual. Joe Bell was subtly great and was influential in the winning goal. Finn Surman grew more and more emphatic as the game went on, dominant in the air and on the ground. Alex Paulsen was essential in the victory – making seven saves overall. Ben Waine toiled away up top and scored the winner. Sam Sutton, Jay Herdman, Michael Boxall, Lachlan Bayliss, Tyler Bindon. There were no weak spots. This was an excellent team performance. Not a perfect one by any means but they showed the grit and grind that was necessary to win, combined with just enough game-busting quality. In fact, we’ve gotta give credit to The Baze for a well-plotted gameplan too. Everybody rose to the occasion.
No weak spots... although Tyler Bindon is so clearly not a right-back. Just sayin’. He did a pretty good job at filling in out of position, winning some strong challenges and getting forward when he could. He also defended way too narrow. Reading FC tried him as a right-back when they were short on numbers last season but it was when he returned to centre-back that his (and his team’s) form really surged. Bazeley keeps trying him there though... probably a reflection of a lack of options more than anything. Someone’s gotta do it and Bindon did well enough. You can tell it’s not natural though.
Big churs to Michael Boxall, making his fourth Olympic football appearance a mere sixteen years after the first three. Boxy also took the captain’s armband after Garbett was substituted. Fascinating decision from Baze to give the armband to Garbs when guys like Bell and Boxall have both captained the All Whites on multiple occasions. It shows the esteem in which he’s held by this coaching staff. Garbett was an alternate player last Olympics and ended up having a breakthrough tournament that’s flowed on into regular All Whites stuff ever since. He’s entering a big season at club level after NAC Breda were promoted to the Eredivisie. He took the penalty here (even though he missed it). This is a dude who craves the big moments. It’s also a credit to the wider All Whites squad that there are so many respected leaders, including amongst some of the (relatively) younger lads like Garbett, Bell, and Libby Cacace who captained at the Nations Cup.
The temperature was 30 degrees at kickoff. It’s summer in France and it’s stonking. That’s another bit of context for that performance, especially with how they closed it out at the end.
The last time the All Whites played outside of their confederation, Sarpreet Singh missed a penalty in a 0-0 draw against Tunisia. That game also ended with a penalty shootout in which Ben Waine missed a spottie. If Chris Wood was in Paris then no dramas, he’s one of the best penalty takers in the world. But he’s not there so it wasn’t immediately obvious who’d actually take the spot kick when they got that stroke of VAR fortune. Captain Garbs stepped up and missed. So it goes. He’s the type of fella who won’t be daunted if that chance comes around again but penalties are definitely not a strong suit of this squad. Except for Alex Paulsen saving them, of course.
In the other game in the group, France beat USA 3-0 thanks to goals from Alexandre Lacazette (61’), Michael Olise (69’), and Loic Bade (85’). USA hit the woodwork a few times while the game was scoreless so it was a close contest... but that result works out nicely for us. Gives the OlyWhites a goal difference boost compared to the Americans which makes it far more feasible that we could progress with a draw against USA. It’s NZ vs USA on Sunday at 5am. Probably useful to be facing France last as well, since they’ll potentially have already qualified with a win against Guinea. Rest a few players for game three, don’t do as much damage to NZ’s GD. That’d do fine... depending on how the USA match goes. Can’t get ahead of ourselves. One thing at a time.
Just quickly on that Uzbek game... that country is actually fantastic at youth football these days, making the semis of each of the last four U23 Asian Cups including winning it in 2018. They also won the 2023 U20 Asian Cup and made the quarters of the 2023 U17 World Cup. Those achievements go well beyond one talented generation of players. Uzbekistan has clearly got a system going. We lost to them... but did so with only one of our overage dudes available. Uzbekistan lost 2-1 to Spain in their opening game.
There was very little video footage from the NZ vs Uzbek match (no drone espionage in this case) but it was open to the public. So there were some photos and one thing that stood out is that many of the players seemed to be wearing different numbers to their allocated tournament shirts. Bowling a doosra to any scouts who happened to be watching, it seems. We beat Guinea so the rules say of hindsight bias declare that the strategy worked perfectly.
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