I'm by no means an expert, but I do call myself a football fan, and I've always paid close attention to the results of the national side.
Needless to say I was pretty pleased when Marco Rojas slotted the winning penalty in the OFC Nations Cup final to secure the All Whites a spot at the Confederations Cup in Russia next year.
The football New Zealand played in the last two games wasn’t pretty, to say the least. Dour, risk-free, boring, and defensive are a few words I would use to describe it.
However one word that the media, fans, and former players haven’t used in the last 48 hours is winning, but isn’t that exactly what we should be calling it?
New Zealand didn’t concede a goal in their last four games, which seems like a pretty good formula to me.
I understand that the opposition wasn’t the best and that the All Whites were outplayed for a majority of their last two games but the scoreboard says they won. Should that not be enough?
Anthony Hudson seems like a pretty smart guy to me, I think he worked out pretty quickly that the free-flowing football he has tried to implement wasn’t going to work on those surfaces.
New Zealand lacked speed across the park which is something that Papua New Guinea, in particular, had in abundance.
Barcelona style football wasn’t likely to win with the tools Hudson had at his disposal.
The end result was two hours of hard-to-watch sport, but as a Kiwi I was also proud.
Hudson it seems doesn’t have a lot of fans within the New Zealand football community. He has made statements that have ruffled feathers and has made somewhat of a clean-out with the coaching structure at the top level.
His ultimate goal is to get his team to the World Cup on 2018 and Saturday night's result is a big step towards that happening. It doesn’t matter how they got there, the fact is they are there.
The All Whites next fixture is unknown, which is even more reason it grates me that Hudson has been copping flack.
If we were in the midst of a league format and the loss in form was concerning I would fully understand the unrest among the football public, but the OFC Nations Cup has been played and won. If Hudson had employed an attacking game-plan in the final and New Zealand lost 4-3 he wouldn’t have a job today and the media would be crucifying him.
But he implemented winning tactics, not dissimilar to how Leicester City closed out the last two months of the EPL or, dare I say, the style with which Jose Mourinho has made a living.
The All Whites have many hurdles ahead on the road to Russia, but there are now one or two less than this time last week.
Newshub.
