Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: There's two ways to look at the All Whites' defeat
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It seems to me you can look at the All Whites’ performance at the Football World Cup one of two ways.
You can either be gloomy about the whipping they took from Belgium - and it was quite the whipping - or you can be impressed by some of what they did in those three games and what that says about the growth of football in New Zealand.
Now, let’s be honest: the drubbing that Belgium handed out to us was a harsh reminder of where we actually sit, ability-wise, in the world of football - which is not at the top.
But there were moments in that tournament that were just brilliant, eh? Eli Just’s three goals, holding Iran to a draw, coming out fighting with exciting, fast-paced football in the first half of both of the first two games and then scoring twice as many goals in this tournament as they did in 1982 and again in 2010.
Now, you take that and add to it the Phoenix Women making their Grand Final this year for the first time ever. You add Auckland FC winning their Grand Final this year and the Premier’s Plate last year. You add Chris Wood, who is a properly excellent player in the Premier League, along with a bunch of others in various top leagues as well.
Then you think about the kids around Auckland wearing AFC kits all the time, the primary school I visited last week where three boys in just one class were wearing football outfits - and where that school only offers two sports, and football is one of them.
You add all of that together and I don’t think it’s overstating it to say we may be at an inflection point for football in this country. We are getting better at it, we are getting far more interested in it and once that trend is underway - and it already is - and kids are growing up wanting to be All Whites, that team will only improve in the years to come.
I feel heartened by this because, yeah, absolutely, some of that last game really sucked - but it didn’t all suck, did it? The whole tournament didn’t suck. Some of it was genuinely impressive, and I’d be happy to bet that next time it might be even better.
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