All Whites’ mind games with Peru arem m

OPINION: There is no doubt Anthony Hudson is familiar with the concept of mind games.

After all, one of his idols and mentors, Jose Mourinho, is considered a master of them, using his press conferences to subtly (and not-so-subtly) get his players to lift, or to put the pressure on his opponents, or to distract from an issue he doesn’t want to address.

Whether the utterances from Hudson, and from his boss, New Zealand Football chief executive Andy Martin, in the past couple of weeks can be described as mind games is debatable.

But their words do help to create a narrative, and shape the context in which next month’s World Cup qualifying playoff between the All Whites and Peru will take place.

As far as narratives go, this one is pretty simple.

Peru are the heavy favourites, and the All Whites are massive underdogs. Peru are trying to make it to football’s showpiece event for the first time since 1982, while the All Whites are trying to make it for the second time in three cycles, albeit for just the third time ever.

Peru is a country where millions of people live and breathe football, and where the national league has been put on hold to allow the national team to prepare. All of the pressure should be on Peru, and none of it on the All Whites, and Hudson, Martin and everyone else should be saying things that help reinforce that.

Instead, we’ve got Hudson saying that he’s pleased to be facing Peru instead of Argentina or Colombia or Chile, despite Peru having a better record than all three of those teams this year – an unbeaten one, in fact.

His comments didn’t go unnoticed in Peru, and as they say, you’ve got to be careful what you wish for.