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New Zealand coach Ricki Herbert, left, and captain Ryan Nelsen reacts after their team's 1-0 win over Bahrain in the World Cup qualifying playoff second leg soccer match at Westpac Stadium in Wellington, New Zealand, Saturday, Nov. 14, 2009. (AP Photo/NZPA, Ross Setford)
Why is Australia playing New Zealand for their final home match before South Africa? No disrespect to the All Whites, but they aren’t the opponents most of Australia were hoping for.
Let’s be frank: Australia is playing two European teams and one African team in the World Cup. So it makes no sense for the FFA to schedule this friendly.
Here is a list of countries that didn’t qualify World Cup that would be better suited than New Zealand for the send off game and preparation for our World Cup campaign: Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro and Bosnia Herzegovina.
All have similar styles of play and players to Serbia and would give our players a real insight against our third round opponent.
Russia, Ukraine and Sweden would also be appropriate preparation for Germany as all three teams are well organised and have good fire power up front.
Egypt defeated Ghana in the African Cup of Nations final and would be ideal preparation in our must win match.
This has been poor organisation, and a poor lead up will result in a poor campaign, in my opinion. It’s not the quality of the opponent that really worries me, it’s the preparation of our campaign.
In the end it’s just a friendly, but it’s a friendly that our Socceroos will gain nothing from except potential injuries and a loss of morale if they are defeated.
We have precious few friendly matches to play and this is not what is required to prepare our national team.
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