Time for underdog tag to be discarded
All Whites boss drives home the importance of raising team’s self belief, reports Clay Wilson.
Sitting in the bowels of Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tennessee, in October last year, Anthony Hudson remembers when he knew it had to change.
The All Whites coach had just watched his then world No 88 team get pipped 2-1 by Mexico, a team no less than 73 places higher on the Fifa rankings.
A 1-1 draw with 22nd-ranked USA in Washington DC three days later only acted to reinforce his certainty on what key element was missing.
‘‘After the games against USA and Mexico it was a strange feeling,’’ Hudson told the Sunday Star Times this week.
‘‘Especially Mexico, there was pride and contentment because we had performed so well, yet actually we could have got more out of that game if we’d just had more belief about us.
‘‘During the game against the US, there were periods where we just dropped off and gave them too much respect. It was just a feeling I got like ‘why are we doing this?’. It’s like it was that whole underdog thing, it was just enough for us to compete.’’
Hudson is adamant banishing that mindset is the single biggest factor in determining whether 2017 will end with New Zealand’s qualification for next year’s World Cup.
If the All Whites don’t have higher expectations and truly believe they can beat the best, he says, their fate will be largely out of their control.
It is a theory hard to disagree with given the magnitude of what they must do to achieve their goal of playing at Russia 2018.
If they can overcome Fiji in a home-and-away tie later this month, Hudson’s team must then prevail in the Oceania confederation final tie in late August and early September.
Undoubtedly, though, the toughest part would come last in the form of a home-and-away tie against the fifth-placed team from South America in November.
Two-thirds of the way through that qualification process that team is a Lionel Messi-led Argentina, who just happen to be world football’s No 1-ranked side.
It is possible even that won’t sway some from a strong belief in the virtues of underdog status. Especially some who closely followed the only two New Zealand teams to qualify for a World Cup, the 1982 and 2010 editions.
Hudson made it clear he has the ‘‘utmost respect’’ for previous All Whites teams, especially those 1982 and 2010 sides.
His attitude, he said, was solely a product of what had transpired during his 21⁄2 years in charge and he stressed that as recently as six months ago it was not a message he could have delivered.
He also wasn’t disputing the underdog mentality, synonymous with Kiwi sporting success, had its place.
During the challenging initial part of a coaching tenure which started in August, 2014, he happily admits he played on it.
A respectable 1-0 loss away to then world No 56 South Korea in early 2015, achieved with a relatively young side as the player net was sometimes controversially cast far and wide, was built on a back-to-the-wall mindset.
But given the significant strides Hudson felt his team had made since, he said there was no value in viewing themselves that way any more.
‘‘That underdog tag is almost like a cop-out, like a security blanket where there is no real expectations on us,’’ he said. ‘‘We’ve been believing we are our past but we are a different team. We are looking at ourselves objectively and where we are as a squad and saying we have real belief.
‘‘Going into March, this will be the strongest squad in my time here. We have our best players available, a good mix of youth and experience, competition for places and we’re coming off the back of some significant performances.
‘‘There are a lot of reasons for us to be backing ourselves.’’
While it is one thing to say that, it is entirely another to make it a reality. Generating the level of belief needed to overcome a powerhouse like Argentina, or other South America fifth spot contenders such as Chile (world No 4), Colombia (7) and Ecuador (22), does not come easily.
Hudson wasn’t shying away from that with what he forthrightly termed a ‘‘statement of intent’’.
Having sent a video message all around the world to his players and spoken to a number of them about his desire for this shift in mindset, he was confident they weren’t either.
‘‘We don’t have a big squad but we have a group of very, very good players. They are honest, love playing for their country and want to achieve something significant.’’
We won’t have to wait long to find out what progress is being made.
Clashes with 61st-ranked hosts Russia, now 17th-ranked Mexico and eighth-ranked European champions Portugal at the Confederations Cup in June present stern tests of just how much the All Whites believe.
Going by Hudson’s assessment of the global game, it will need to be plenty.
‘‘When I look at football over the world underdogs rarely win. They win occasionally but more often than not they lose.’’
Not something Hudson, his team or Kiwi football fans want come November.