‘Where All Whites are made’, goes the tagline. Once upon a time that would’ve been more insult than inspiration but in recent times it seems like they might just be onto something.
And here we had it, the game that we’d all been waiting for, a Flying Kiwis Premier League Derby for only the third time in history and Chris Wood’s first experience of such conflicted stakes.
And with that the All Whites will compete for a place at the 2018 FIFA World Cup against Peru, over two legs, home and away, in November. Maybe that’s a better prospect than playing Chile or Argentina but Peru didn’t seem too intimidated by the opportunity.
When Vido Jr put that header away five minutes in it seemed like we were in for golden times at the Wellington Phoenix. It was strangely reminiscent of the goal the All Whites scored, actually.
Leading your sports news tonight… Abby Erceg is one game away from captaining successive NWSL championship teams. That and the small matter of the biggest Flying Kiwis Derby of all time which is coming up.
Most of the problems with the All Whites right now are things we can deal with. We’re over-reliant on Chris Wood’s goals? No worries, he scores a lot of them and he’s pretty fit these days.
Alright, that’s it then. No more tests and no more experiments. The next time the All Whites play will be against the South American representatives in the Intercontinental Playoffs of World Cup Qualification.
It’s impossible to know what to expect from the Nix this season. A new coach, several new players in key positions, barely any preseason games against A-League teams to judge them against… impossible.
Seems now like Woody’s a regular for the Clarets. Another ninety without a goal means he’s officially in a drought by his recent standards but, coincidence or not, Burnley have also only conceded one goal in the 390 Premier League minutes that he’s played for them.
They’re so much fun, these All Whites squads. What a luxury to have actual selection controversies, to know that there are more quality kiwis out there than can fit in a single touring party.
Then Fernando Llorente and Winston Reid bumped shoulders. Winston ran over and tried to put on NFL block on him as he shielded the ball. Carroll and Llorente clashed on the end of a long ball. That was one too many for Winnie, Big Andy’s his best mate, and he ran in to fire away some heavy words. Love a bit of biffo in the footy!
On the morning of the Footy Ferns’ second international against the USA, coach Tony Readings was quoted on the radio talking about ‘putting learnings into action’ between the first game and the second. So let’s talk learnings then.
Since Winston Reid returned from injury it’s almost been like a different West Ham. Two games and two clean sheets – the only thing missing away to West Brom on the weekend was a winning goal.
Mike Den Heijer is a kiwi footy player doing his thing for NEC Nijmegen in The Netherlands. How that came to happen is a pretty fantastic story and Mike was decent enough to spin the yarn here for us.
Football managers are held to notoriously fragile standards but even for the Premier League seeing Crystal Palace sack Frank de Boer four games into the league season was a brow-raiser.
There’s really nothing The Woodsman can do wrong right now, is there? He scored in his first Premier League game for Burnley and then grabbed a hatty for the All Whites on international duty. And guess what? Now he's scored again.
It was all action as New Zealand club football’s two most iconic competitions came to their dramatic conclusion. Glenfield Rovers vs Eastern Suburbs in the women’s and Central United vs Onehunga Sports in the men’s.
Aotearoa’s done its bit. A Chris Wood hatty in Auckland inspired a comfortable 8-3 aggregate victory over the Solomon Islands and the All Whites will represent Oceania in the last round of World Cup qualifying.
The most important thing to remember about this game is that, thanks to Friday night, it didn’t matter at all. An 8-3 aggregate win may as well have been 8-7 and we still woulda been looking forward to that intercontinental playoff.
Most of the Flying Kiwis were back in Aotearoa for All Whites duty so this week might be a bit of a slim one, but just because Chris Wood wasn’t in action for Burnley doesn’t mean he wasn’t making waves.