Enjoy a special day, football fans
Days like this are scarce for Kiwi football fans. Hope, anticipation and razor-edged nerves are a once-every-four-years kind of deal if you’re a supporter of the All Whites.
That’s when the World Cup rolls around, but more importantly, a World Cup playoff for New Zealand. This year, two games against world No 10 Peru, in which the 122ndranked Kiwis are overwhelming underdogs, stand between them and a spot at football’s pinnacle event in Russia in 2018.
Today, Wellington’s pubs and cafes will start to fill from midmorning as hordes of white-clad men and women prepare for what promises to be an emotionally draining day.
They’ll be joined by a sea of red sashes as more than 1500 Peruvian fans converge on central Wellington. You’ll hear them before you see them. A seemingly endless racket of drums, trumpets and singing precedes their arrival at any venue.
If either fans are early risers, they might see their heroes out for a stroll along the waterfront as they look to get loose ahead of what, for many of them, will be the biggest games of their careers.
Save for making the World Cup finals in Russia next year, it doesn’t get any bigger than this.
New Zealand’s English Premier League stars Chris Wood and Winston Reid will be used to the pressure, but younger players, such as Storm Roux and Declan Wynne, will need to look to them for guidance.
Peru have the more experienced team across the board, but are without their inspirational captain Paolo Guerrero after a failed drugs test. They’ll need big performances from the experienced Alberto Rodriguez and Jefferson Farfan, while their next generation of stars, led by Renato Tapia and Christian Cueva, will provide their spark.
Coffees and beers, and maybe a spot of lunch if you can stomach, downed, it’s time to start the slow crawl towards Westpac Stadium.
That’s when things really start to kick in. Any fan who has made the walk down the concourse to the stadium knows that surge of excitement it brings, which will only be amplified on a day like today.
Kiwi fans are notoriously late arrivers to sporting events, but the Peruvians won’t be. They’ll be ready when the gates crash open at 2pm to hustle to their seats. They’ll do anything to ensure their team returns to the World Cup for the first time since 1982.
New Zealand made their first World Cup appearance that year and have been back once since, in 2010 in South Africa.
They got to that tournament on the back of the most incredible night in Wellington in 2009 after a 1-0 aggregate win over Bahrain. Rory Fallon’s headed goal and Mark Paston’s penalty save were greeted by a cacophony of jubilation and outpouring of emotion from Kiwi sports fans, the likes of which have rarely been seen in this country.
There are serious benefits to come from this game: $8 million will get pumped into the Wellington economy, while a win would fill New Zealand Football’s coffers to the tune of $11m from the prizemoney for just making the World Cup.
But even those are overshadowed by the occasion, an occasion which will heap pressure on All Whites coach Anthony Hudson, who could be out of a job if these games don’t go well.
Kiwi fans will be hoping to still have their World Cup dream alive come 6.10pm or so. A draw will do. A win would be even better as a small group of about 30 diehard fans prepare for the long trip to Lima for Thursday’s second leg.
People will flow back out of the stadium and into restaurants and bars to recount tales of happiness or woe.
By then the Peruvians will already have started their long trip back to Lima, while the All Whites will spend the night in Wellington before leaving tomorrow.
Just who will have the happier players and set of fans is anyone’s guess. This isn’t rugby, the gap in class does not mean the result is preordained.
Anything can happen in football. The 36,000-odd Kiwi fans in attendance will be hoping it does.