New Zealand 2010 - T&T 2006
By Harmit Singh Kamboe (indianfootball.com)
The FIFA World Cup is about watching the best teams and players as it is about watching teams from smaller far off countries that one does not normally associate with football or the global stage.
In the 2006 World Cup, the presence of Trinidad & Tobago, the southern most island in the Caribbean with a population of slightly over 1.3 million was an eye opener. In the 2010 World Cup, it will be the presence of New Zealand (population of slightly more than 4.3 million) will add some exotic element to the World Cup.
There seem to be two key factors that assisted both Trinidad & Tobago in 2006 and New Zealand in 2010 in their journey.
1. Overseas Players
T&T, as Trinidad & Tobago is also fondly called, relied on players that mostly play in Europe and can claim only some parental lineage to the islands in 2006 to make it to Germany.
The same is true of New Zealand, many of their players ply their trade in Europe, especially England, and the MLS in North America. But both teams made their chances by good planning and foresight.
2. Some Planning & Some Luck
The qualification format also favoured New Zealand and T&T. In the Oceania group New Zealand only had to overcome Fiji, Vanuatu and New Caledonia. Fiji were perhaps the only threat in that group.
After coming through their group, the All Whites (as the Kiwi football team is known) played Bahrain for the play off spot that exists between Asia and Oceania. The Kiwis brought home a goalless draw from the Middle East and then on Saturday, November 14 the WestPac stadium was filled with 35,000 vocal supporters wearing white.
New Zealand scored a goal of a corner kick in the 45th minute by Rory Fallon. Bahrain could have levelled the score of a penalty awarded in the 51st minute and won on the "away" goal rule but the penalty was wasted.
On the road to the 2006 World Cup, T&T tied 0-0 with Costa Rica, beat Panama 2-0, beat Guatemala 3-2, beat Mexico 2-1, and beat Bahrain 1-0 (after tying 1-1 with Bahrain in the previous leg) amongst some losses. Beating Mexico and some of these Central American countries was no mean feat.
Bahrain have been one game away from making the World Cup twice in a row now. As a nation of 1.05 million people with 0.5 million foreigners, they perhaps represent the best example of what a good football program can achieve.
Bahrain play in the AFC playoffs for the 4.5 spots and in order to meet New Zealand they had to put up a respectable effort (did not lose by hefty margins) against Australia and Japan who were placed in their group. Bahrain beat Uzbekistan and Qatar in their group to meet Saudi Arabia in a playoff and then defeat them for the right to meet the All Whites for might have been their first trip to the World Cup.
Our own Indian football program is unfortunately a long way from yielding any of these kind of results on a consistent, long term basis. But we hope that with the key AIFF appointments soon to be filled, we get people that will communicate with Indian football fans with a real plan and not just dreams and visions.
