2002 ONC/2003 Confeds Cup

Phase 2 of the alignment to discuss past Confederations Cup participations - seeing as number 1 was so....cough.....popular....

The short story is we smaaaaaashed Australia 1-0 at Mt Smart (nee Ericsson) in the Final to send us to the Confeds Cup. All of our pool matches were at NHS, and I arranged A/L to see them all - but I cant remember any of them now.....I thought this was the campaign we bet the Cooks 2-0, but according to Wikipedia I am ignorant and stupid.

Anyway, I do remember the final - the Bloc moved from it's traditional surrounds and moved to the end of the ground where we were to score. Aussie, again, sent a weakened team, with only Scott Chipperfield (Basel) coming over from Europe. We had a number of offshore players, and this was the period where Ivan would just wander around in midfield and not do a lot, despite playing for Roda. Free kick won deep in the second half, swung in by Elliott, shinned in by Nellie, jobs a good'un.

We all started singing "we're going to go to Paris, we're going to go to Paris....." and we really believed that this would be the last ever time that Australia would send a weak team, therefore the last ever time NZ would qualify for a major championship. Australia to Asia wasn't even on the radar. The atmosphere was euphoric. My hands were bleeding from clapping - not like stigmata levels, but red enough that everything I touched had blood on it.....

So Paris-bound we go......a few of the Bloc went. I tacked a Contiki tour beforehand, Karl did one afterwards, Cam Jones (RIP big guy) was there, Mel and Milts were living in the UK by then. Bruce H was there, and a number of others. We met at some Irish pub beforehand, and people were saying how difficult it was to pick up their tickets. I don't know the full story off that, as Karl got mine while I drank, but I'm sure someone can fill in the blanks here.

First game was against Japan and we play like shark and get stuffed 3-0. When the score got to 3, the French crowd were exuberant - I found out this was because they were the WC Final 3-0.....seems they forget that we helped in WW2, and the Japanese were on the Germans side....grumble grumble.....there were also a lot of Kiwis over from London, and called themselves the Wolfpack. It seemed that  their main lot in life seemed to be going out of their way to shout down the Bloc, which created a testy atmosphere in that first match in St Denis. Also noticed that the cops there were in full armour, with submachine guns. Oh la la.

Game 2 was in Lyon against Colombia. Lyon is a really beautiful place, and I wish all our matches were there. Stade Gerland was also a nice stadium. Stadia. Somehow, the main NZ support was on one end of the pitch, while Karl, Cam and I were at the other end. They looked great from our view, Milts leading the songs, I hope they saw us wave the Bloc 5 flag from their end. We were singing "Allez Nouvelle Zelande" to the tune of the French National Anthem, and the people around us all applauded it.....that was nice....oh, Karl tried to bring a whole reel of johnnies in the stadium, which one of the armed cops found.....god knows why he brought them in. Raf airshotted a strike which bobbled up, then miskicked it in from 30 yards - we're in the lead! Didn't Smeltz get sent off in this? We crumbled, and lost 1-3. We went to the AWs hotel afterwards and cheered in the boys, and got photos - they looked disappointed. Nelsen especially.

Back up to Gay Paris, where we got our arses handed to us on a nice shiny silver platter. Scott Smith took the field against the Euro 2002 winners - I bet Henry, Pires etc had done a lot of scouting on the man from Kingstonian FC. The score line was moderately respectable for much of the match - I think Killen had a good chance to score? But then their superstar subs came on, they went up the gears and we had no show.

It wasn't till afterwards that I found about the ructions behind the scenes, I heard it was Smalley and Ricki undermining Mick Waitt - and Dewhurst making a pigs ear of his role - I know the fans were unhappy with Dewhurst, but was this more of a general feel rather than anything specific? My memory is he made a cock up of something to do with tickets?

And it wasn't till later I found out about poor Marc-Vivien Foe.

On the field, I thought Elliott and Hay played really well, while Oughton, Zorocich, Vicelich and Lines all had disasters. The rest were on the poor side of average. Our tactics and abilities were negatively viewed by FIFA as well from memory. It wasn't a happy camp behind the scenes, as the money side of things hadn't been sorted with the players, which no doubt had an impact.

Definitely a step back after Mexico 1999

What do other people recall?

I only remember Raf's goal. The rest was very, very forgettable.

The youtube vid of that on TBdFSOE's channel disappointed me.  In my mind's memory it had grown to a 35m thunderbolt.  I guess the first 'touch' was about that far out.

I can recall the Aus vs Tahiti Semi in horrible driving rain at Mt. Smart in front of about 150 people. Tahiti scored in the 38th minute and for the next 50 minutes we laid into Farina and the Aus bench as they looked like going down.  We were hiding under the awnings at the front of the empty corporate boxes while the other 120 people were up in the top tier of the West stand where it was much drier and warmer.

They scored in the 88th and 90th minute and started giving it back to us.  Could have been the best night ever if they had gone down. Sigh.

Good memory! I remember that now.....what a pooser

I remember that Irish bar in Paris and the ticket fiasco, basically the french ticket agency, took our money and then never sent out the tickets, in the end we had to pick the tickets up on the day before the game - which was ok for some but a lot only arrived on the day of the 1st game, think they had to send an email and get a password and then others could pick up on their behalf (pretty sure I did pick some up for others and met them at the Irish bar the next day) They still charged us for the postage though! I complained later and think I still have my refund cheque for 10 euros somewhere

The finals were a bit disappointing especially after a decent build up starting with a double header in Estonia and Poland in late 2002

We flew from London to Helsinki and then got the fast ferry to Tallinn for the Estonia game, about 50 kiwi fans there, mainly ones based in London, we lost 3-2 thanks to a Jason Batty howler. 

I was one of 5 All Whites fans that then made there way from Estonia down to Poland, the game in Poland was played in a small town with just 1 hotel, which was where the teams were staying. When we arrived the local kids all wanted our autographs, figuring we must be part of the official team! Got in the hotel and met the NZ team manager (Alex Hayton? I think) he asked if we had tickets, which we didn't he told us the 10000 seat stadium had been sold out for 3 weeks! Then told us to be in the bar later on (where else would we go?) and came in with 5 complimentary tickets. We also met 1/2 the team who seemed really impressed that we had made it to the game (either that or they thought we were nutters and were just being polite)

At the game we were treated like celebrities, with the locals and press all getting their photos taken with us. A friendly chap asked if we wanted a beer so we said yes when he came back with the beers we went to pay for them but he said no he worked for the brewery that was sponsoring the game and the beers were free! Think we probably had 8 or 9 pints during the game! Ended up swapping my All White top for a Poland one with him. All Whites lost to 2 late goals but Poland were the better team. 

After the game we ended up in the towns only open bar and met 2 other Kiwis who had managed to get into the game for free but had to sit with the brass band! We were having a few drinks and the bar maid came over with a bottle of champagne and in her very limited English and a some charade acting we worked out the champagne was from the old Polish guy at the next table who was celebrating the fact his son had made his debut for Poland that night, so we got him and his pal to join us and toasted them and his son - they couldn't speak any English and we couldn't speak Polish so alot of smiling and toasting drinks went on then they left. When we went to go we discovered that he had also paid for our drinks bill! As we had already chucked our Zloty's on the table we just picked them up and gave them to the bar maid as a tip, she looked stunned to us it was a few quid, to her it was probably equivalent to a few months wages!

Then in March there was the Scotland game at Tyncastle in Edinburgh. Being a Scottish Kiwi meant I couldn't lose so went wearing my Kilt with a NZ top. Scotland were in their Berti Vogts error, so were pretty bad, Ryan Nelsen scored a great free kick and NZ were unlucky not to win the game which ended 1-1

Then they went to the USA for a couple of games and training camp. I remember thinking things were going to go well and then the Japan game happened, it wasn't just the playing badly it looked as if the players didn't really care. Later discovered there were all sorts of disputes around money etc which didn't help. They looked better in Lyon against the Colombians, especially in the 2nd half when they pulled it back to 2-1. The France game was always going to be a hammering but it was actually only 2-0 for most of the game, 3 goals came in the last 20 minutes - 2 off those in added on time.

I went back for the Final a week later, a very strange game, after the death of Foe, neither team really wanted to play. Sepp Blatter was roundly booed. France won 1-0 with a golden goal. Remember Desailly getting the Cameroon captain Song over and them lifting the cup together.

Yes Raf's goal was a beaut. And the Guiness in the Paris Irish bar was also pretty good if hellishly expensive.  In Lyon I also went to the team's hotel bar post-match and I seem to recall the Godfather saying how knackered he'd been in the 2nd half, and how the team were pissed off with Wait's use/non-use of subs.

Leading goals scorer in that Nations Cup was almost Phoenix player Joel Porter.

I think there may actually be a shot of you and Karl at the top of that stand somewhere on here Russ:

Milts, that's just typical, I go and say NZ looked great when the pulled it back to 2-1 and you out the video up that shows we were 1-0 up!!!! 

I now remember that (amazing what seeing what actually happened does to your memory!) I also remember Killen being sent off and we were all calling for Smeltz to be introduced straight away as he could have made the difference. but he wasn't. although when he did come on he gave us a bit of hope. 

Got to say how good was Utting.

Also remember after this game, word went round the NZ fans that we were all invited back to the teams hotel, we were skeptical but went along as it wasn't far from the town center (and a hotel always has a bar!) but they were true to their word, we all got in and freely mingled with the team and officials etc before we went off to a night in the bars of Lyon