Going, but he won’t be forgotten

OPINION:

When he arrived in August 2014, he was full of ambition and confidence, laying out a plan to get the All Whites to the World Cup playing positive football, and making no secret of his belief that he was destined for bigger things.

In the three years since, he has had all manner of challenges thrown his way. He has grizzled at times, but he persevered, and this month, he got closer to the World Cup than many expected him tio.

A close loss to Peru may not have been the prize he was after, but it will do nicely as a line on his CV as he heads off to his next challenge, wherever that may be. In the coming weeks, his impact on the game here will be assessed and debated.

The early view, however, is that he has been an agent of change off the field more than he has been on it. Even then, those improvements owe a lot to NZ Football investing more in the team than they ever have before, to the tune of $8-9 million over the past four years.

Hudson deserves credit for demanding that increased support. But any other coach could and should have done the same, though whether they would have had the determination to see it through is another matter.

On Sunday, Hudson urged NZ Football to increase its support of the team even more going forward, which will be a hard ask, given they have missed out on the cash bump World Cup qualification brings.

In getting the support he has, you could say he has conquered, even though he probably feels he could have been given more. His successor will have his work cut out maintaining the status quo.

On the field, his team took care of Oceania. They certainly didn’t do it in style – they needed a penalty shootout to win the Nations Cup last year – but they did it, and after their failure in 2012, that was all that mattered.

Their results against the rest of the world, however, have to go down as a disappointment. One win and four draws from 16 games is less than they managed in each of the past two World Cup cycles, and while there were patches where the positive attitude Hudson promised could be seen, they were only patches.

Did we expect too much? Perhaps. But the coach was the one setting the expectations.

There is one area where he should feel unlucky, and that is with regard to injuries. Not once in 27 matches was he able to field a full-strength team. He came close against Peru in the home leg in Wellington, but by the time Chris Wood came on, Tommy Smith had limped off.

All Whites legend Wynton Rufer said earlier this week that Hudson wouldn’t be remembered in New Zealand, but that doesn’t seem likely, not for a man with such a strong personality.

Wherever he goes next, football people in New Zealand will be keeping tabs on him. At 36, he is young, as we have been reminded so many times, and he has a long way to go in his football management career.

If he reaches the heights he wants to, we will want to remind the world that we helped him get there. If he fails, we won’t, and his harshest critics might even say they had him pegged from the start.

Were we one of the first stops in the story of a great? We’ll have to wait and see.