Striker Shane Smeltz is happy to pile the pressure on his All Whites teammates as they head into a crucial World Cup OFC qualifier match against Fiji in Lautoka on Saturday afternoon (NZ time).
The All Whites, who have begun assembling in Wellington before heading to Fiji for the tie, will hope to improve on their previous international showing, a patchy 0-0 away draw to New Caledonia in November.
Smeltz will make his long-awaited return to the All Whites team and said it was high time the squad filled the mental role as favourites.
"Look we're clear favourites in this and the biggest thing is I don't think there is anything we need to be too concerned about," said Smeltz.
"Destiny is in our own hands, if we're relaxed that's probably the biggest thing that can hurt us. But I'm sure if you've spoken to the gaffer, that's not going to happen."
The 35-year-old has scored 24 goals in 51 appearances for the All Whites, last making his appearance in September 2015 in a friendly against Myanmar.
Returning from the professional football wilderness later in 2016 to sign with the Wellington Phoenix, Smeltz said the team is ready to show some of the form they showed in the US last October.
"Everyone's going to be on their toes the minute they get into camp and going to make sure we get the right result."
The All Whites will be hoping they can get the best out of youngster Marco Rojas when they come up against Fiji, a team that's world number 181, 69 places below New Zealand.
Rojas has been on fire for the Melbourne Victory in the A-League, scoring 12 goals in 20 matches to be the league's fourth highest goal-scorer. And the youngster is keen for the team to assert their dominance over Fiji from the start but had a warning for his teammates
"We want to make sure we go in and dominate from start to finish," Rojas said.
"We know we're a good team, we know we're good enough to win these games and we should be winning these games.
"But football is a funny game sometimes, if you're not mentally prepared, it evens out the field."
While the OFC qualifiers against Fiji will be the focus of the side, the 2017 Confederations Cup kicking off in Russia in June will be at the back of the All Whites' mind. And the 25-year-old is hoping they could use Fiji as a stepping stone to showcasing the football they're capable of playing.
"We don't just want to go to these future tournaments and be there to make an appearance.
"We want to make some noise, we want to push ourselves on every camp on every tour.
"We started doing that on the States tour against Mexico and the US, I think we played some good football, maybe surprised a few people in those countries and we're just going to continue to try to do that."
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