When they talk about the ‘Road to Russia’, they tend to mean the World Cup in 2018 but that’s probably just the All Whites being hopeful. So far so good in the Oceania stuff, it’s the step after that which is gonna be the issue. A two-legged playoff against the fifth best team from South America who right now would be Argentina, though Chile and Colombia are a point above and below them with two thirds of qualification complete.

But along the so-called Road to Russia, the NZ footy team has collaterally booked an alternate trip to Putinville for the 2017 Confederations Cup – to be held in June/July during the European offseason. Oh hey and they made the draw this weekend.

Drumroll please…

So you probably already know this, the Confeds Cup is like a warmup tourney for the next hosts of the FIFA World Cup. It’s a proper competition but nobody really takes it too seriously. There are eight teams, the winners of the six confederations (hence the name), the hosts and the World Cup champs. So Russia and Germany are in on the latter two things, Chile won South America, Portugal won the Euros, Mexico in CONCACAF, Australia in Asia and we’ll find out who represents Africa when the Cup of Nations takes place in January. New Zealand, meanwhile, qualified when they won the Oceania Nations Cup in Papua New Guinea a few months back.

It’s a tournament that the All Whites have been to three times in the past, never doing all that much to shout about before. The first few times that Oceania was invited we still had to deal with the pesky obstacle that is Australia, though we had a couple successes in there. Mark Burton’s goal that got us up 1-0 over the Socceroos in Brisbane to win the 1998 Nations Cup and then Ryan Nelsen’s winner four years later against the same buggers. Those two results qualified us for the 1999 and 2003 events (it was held every two years until 2005).

In 1999 we drew one ruthless old group, losing 2-1 to USA, 2-0 to Germany and 2-0 to Brazil. All pretty commendable results for where we were in those days. Chris Zoricich’s injury time consolation goal against America is a moment of legend.

Although only the second best Confeds Cup goal we’ve ever scored. Number one would be the absolute belter that Raf de Gregorio smashed in against Colombia in 2003. Following a 3-0 defeat to Japan, Raf’s goal put us 1-0 up against Colombia, a lead we held into half-time. But… nah, it didn’t last. By the end of it we went down 3-1 and would lose 5-0 to hosts France in the next game.

Australia left Oceania after qualifying through OFC for the 2005 Confeds Cup, which cleared the path for the kiwis. 2009 the All Whites made their third appearance, which came a few months before their playoffs for 2010 World Cup qualification. First off, a 5-0 defeat against Spain – the team that’d win that World Cup. It probably could’ve been twice that. Next up they played the hosts South Africa and lost 2-0. Third off they played Asian Cup winners Iraq and… they didn’t lost. They didn’t win either but a 0-0 draw flashed a little of the defensive steel that’d come through a year later at the World Cup.

That’s the history, two goals in nine games with one draw and eight defeats. 24 goals conceded. We should have been there in 2013 as well but we bottled it in tough conditions, losing 2-0 to New Caledonia in the Nations Cup there and Tahiti ended up taking OFC’s spot in the comp. They lost 6-1 to Nigeria, 10-0 to Spain and 8-0 to Uruguay.

Russia, Mexico and Portugal. How about that? It would’ve been nice to get the Aussies but hey maybe we’ll meet them in the semis. Nah, that’s not gonna happen – no way they make the semis. And to be honest if there were two teams that we really didn’t wanna see (for reasons of dignity preservation) then they were Chile and Germany and we left both of them to the Aussies (who’ll also play the top team in Africa).

Russia are the hosts. They’ll be pulling out every stop to ensure they do their country proud with everyone watching though they’re also a team that’ll be vulnerable. Since making the semis of Euro 2008, they’ve only won one game in major competition – not even qualifying for the 2010 World Cup. At the Euros this year they were genuinely terrible. They snatched a draw off of England with an injury time equaliser in a game they were pretty well outplayed in before going down 2-1 to Slovakia and then getting smacked down 3-0 by Wales. Manager Leonid Slutsky, who’d taken over from a hugely ill-advised gamble on Fabio Capello, then promptly resigned and has since been replaced by Stanislav Cherchesov. They’re not a whole lot better. Cherchesov has used 32 players in five games as he tries to figure out which of them are worthy of his best XI and with automatic qualification for the next World Cup as hosts, this is their one chance to play some competitive matches before then.

Mexico we’ve seen before. Hell, we played them a couple months ago and were unlucky to lose 2-1. To be fair that wasn’t the top strength Mexican side but it still gives us a bit of experience against that style of play and all that. They’re a top quality side too. Some seriously talented players at clubs in Europe and across the Americas. Aside from an embarrassing 7-0 pasting at the hands of Chile (who are as good as any national team on the planet right now) at the Copa America Centenario back in June they haven’t lost a game since June 2015 and they got to this tournament with a 2-1 extra time victory over USA in October 2015. This’ll be the fifth time New Zealand have played Mexico since 2010, losing all four of those to date. Juan Carlos Osorio is Mexico’s 12th coach in nine years but with the way they’re going he’ll be there a while.

Portugal. Can’t say they were expected European champs though they’re proof that in tournament footy the main thing is to keep from getting beaten. Stay in contention, see if you get lucky. Portugal struggled early in that tournament with a 1-1 draw against Iceland and a 0-0 vs Austria and having to come from behind three times for a 3-3 draw vs Hungary. They crept through as a third-place finisher, needing extra time to beat Croatia, penalties to beat Poland, getting by Wales 2-0 in regulation and going to extra time in the final to beat France. Perseverance, aye? The good thing with all three of these teams that NZ will play is that none of them are teams that’ll likely go crazy on attack. Portugal have their moments but aren’t the most clinical, their Euro 2016 campaign was built on a very solid defence. The kiwis have shown in recent times that they’re a team that enjoys a tight contest themselves and the closer these games are, the more likely a cheeky goal against the run of play could be the decider. Plus Iceland have already sketched the blueprint for us.

Fernando Santos’ Portugal are the clear favourites in this group. That’s cool, a team like New Zealand comes into a tournament such as this hoping to make a few waves and maybe cause an upset but it’s a waste if you don’t also get to sample some of the world’s best. Cristiano Ronaldo is the lifeblood of Portuguese footy. Mate, imagine if Argentina get that WCQ playoff and the All Whites play Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi in the space of a few months.

In some ways, this is a perfect draw. New Zealand will comfortably be the smallest team there so it’s not like they can expect winnable games but here they have a healthy blend of competitive games where they’ll at least have a chance of staying close and also iconic opposition. Russia are gonna be under huge pressure to beat us, the All Whites being the weakest team in the group and all. The ball is in their court, to mix sporting metaphors, and as a team that doesn’t have the strongest midfield they’re not the worst match-up for the NZers. Portugal are a team you can keep close and see where it goes from there, while Mexico we’ve already got the scouting report done for to go. Put it this way: we’ve got a much, much better draw than the Aussies.

Before getting in on expectations for the All Whites next year, we’ll have to wait and see which players are there. Already Germany are talking about resting their Premier League dudes. Maybe Ronaldo gets a break, maybe Javier Hernandez too. Russia will probably go all out but they’re comfortably the weakest of the three opponents for now so no worries. Of course equally important is who plays for NZ. Like, Ronaldo sits for Portugal they can still throw out Nani and Renato Sanches and the like. New Zealand? If Winston Reid isn’t there then we’re probably looking at Themi Tzimopoulos so yeah. We’ll see.

We’ll definitely see. It sounds like Anthony Hudson/NZ Football have some big plans too. Should be good:

Coach Huddo: “On top of these games we could have a couple of games that are equally as big as these three in the tournament which will make this period an incredible period for our preparation. In the next week or so we will, touch wood, have those games confirmed as well which puts us in an even stronger position.”

We’ll see about that, too.