All Whites keen to finish on a high

Chris Wood could hardly care less about rankings and reputation when it comes to his team’s last game at the Confederations Cup.

Forget that Portugal are ranked 87 places higher, are the champions of Fifa’s biggest confederation and led by the reigning and four-time world player of the year, the All Whites captain has only one result in his sights.

‘‘We want to win the game,’’ Wood said ahead of the clash with Cristiano Ronaldo’s team in St Petersburg tomorrow.

‘‘They are a great side and European champions but we are going in there to win that game, we want to finish on a positive note.’’

There is more than one reason Wood has that mindset.

The match is New Zealand’s last chance to get a result at the tournament after their hopes of a historic appearances in the knockout stages where ended by a 2-0 loss to hosts Russia and 2-1 defeat to Mexico.

However, it is mostly how his team performed in the second of those two games which meant the Kiwi captain didn’t hesitate when asked what they hoped to get out of their clash with Portugal.

The All Whites played with energy, creativity and plenty of their traditional physicality against Mexico. They were the better team in the first half and probably should have led by more than 1-0 at the break before the world’s 17th-ranked side emerged from the sheds a different side and charged to a come-from-behind victory.

‘‘It was a massive improvement,’’ Wood said, while also reiterating his disappointment they had not got more from the game.

‘‘If we had performed like that in the Russia game we would have won. I believe if we perform like that against Portugal we have a very good chance of beating them.

‘‘We were fantastic in that first half [against Mexico] ... everything we did was second to none.

‘‘As long as we do what we did in that first half for 90 minutes, we’ll give them a right good game and cause them a lot of problems.’’

There is no doubt achieving that would be no mean feat.

A Portuguese side littered with world-class players led twice in a 2-2 draw with Mexico before beating Russia 1-0. Captain Cristiano Ronaldo was man of the match against the Mexicans and scored the winning goal against the hosts.

Containing the Real Madrid superstar alone would be a feather in the All Whites cap. Keeping 10 other players of such high quality at bay is a stiffer task again.