Reid’s farewell party spoiled by Socceroos
Two second-half Socceroos goals meant Winston Reid’s final outing for the All Whites ended up a 2-0 loss.
A crowd of 34,985 turned out at Eden Park in Auckland yesterday for the captain’s farewell match, which was also the team’s first on home soil since November 2017.
That made it the third-largest football attendance in New Zealand history, after the World Cup playoff draw with Peru in 2017 (37,034) and the World Cup playoff win over Bahrain in 2009 (35,179).
The masses were left with nothing to celebrate, however, as Mitchell Duke and Jason Cummings scored to give the World Cup-bound visitors the spoils and a sixth win in a row in the transTasman matchup.
Yesterday’s match meant different things to both teams.
To the All Whites, it was their first fixture at home for five years, and a pretty big deal.
To the Socceroos, it was the encore to their World Cup send-off match last Thursday, where the two teams met at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane and the hosts prevailed 1-0.
As a result, Australia coach Graham Arnold made 11 changes and released many of his firstchoice players. All Whites coach Danny Hay made three, bringing
in Reid, Marko Stamenic and Bill Tuiloma for Michael Boxall, Andre de Jong and Dane Ingham.
Chris Wood was an early withdrawal after appearing to suffer a side strain in an early collision. He departed after just half an hour and was replaced by Ben Waine.
Clear-cut chances were hard to come by in the first half, with the All Whites’ best passages coming when they were able to shift the ball through midfield quickly to Liberato Cacace on the left.
They also threatened through Garbett, who sent a shot straight at Andrew Redmayne in goal when he had right wingback Tim Payne to his left, and went on a run that led to a shot by Marko Stamenic which went just over the bar.
The Socceroos should have gone in front just before halftime when Connor Metcalfe beat Reid to a header and Duke was released with only All Whites goalkeeper Oli Sail to beat.
Duke opted to square the ball for Marco Tilio, who scuffed his shot wide to the right when he only had a recovering Bill Tuiloma to beat, which prompted the largest cheer of the opening 45 minutes.
Sail was called on seven minutes into the second half to send a curling Tilio effort away from goal, but he could do nothing about Duke’s fierce headed effort two minutes later, which came when he met a cross from Metcalfe on the left.
Alex Greive was introduced for Elijah Just with the All Whites now chasing the game and had a golden chance to equalise in the 68th minute, when the ball fell to him at the top of the box after a good piece of pressure by Waine, but he could only send his shot straight at Redmayne.
Reid’s afternoon ended in the 73rd minute and he received a standing ovation and hugs from coaches Hay and Arnold as he took his seat on the bench, leaving his team-mates to try to salvage something from the match.
The Socceroos were denied thrice in succession as the game became open with the final 10 minutes approaching, but won a penalty in the process for a handball by Cacace, which Cummings cooly converted to double his side’s lead.