All Whites beat China to end long goal drought
The All Whites ended a 360-day goal drought with a controversial 2-1 win over China in their second international friendly, at Wellington’s Sky Stadium yesterday.
New Zealand’s national men’s football team had not scored since it beat the Solomon Islands 5-0 in the final of the OFC World Cup qualifying tournament on March 30, 2022.
And it looked like that goalless run would continue past 365 days when striker Alex Greive had a tame penalty saved in the 33rd minute.
But they managed to avoid going an entire year without scoring after China defender Chenije Zhu turned the ball past his own goalkeeper three minutes before halftime following a teasing freekick from Marco Rojas.
Substitute Matt Garbett scored* the decisive goal in the 81st minute – six minutes after his introduction – after he was picked out by Joe Bell and fired the ball past Junling Yan.
Dun Ba pulled one back for
China with a powerful header deep in stoppage time, but there was not sufficient time to mount a dramatic comeback.
Referee Kim Woo Sung pointed to the spot after Elijah
Just was brought down in the box by Shaocong Wu after he pounced on the loose ball and burst through on goal.
Greive stepped up to take the penalty but he never looked confident and his effort was weak and straight down the middle, and easily saved by goalkeeper Junling.
Greive held his head in his hands in despair.
When the All Whites did score, it came in rather fortunate circumstances.
In all, 582 minutes of football had been played since their last goal, but they were lucky there was no VAR in play yesterday.
Replays showed All Whites centre-back Michael Boxall had jumped the gun and was standing in an offside position when Rojas’ boot made contact with the ball before he contested for the header.
Interim coach Darren Bazeley picked a team with a strong Wellington influence for the All
At a glance
At Sky Stadium, Wellington: All Whites 2 (Chinjie Zhu own goal 42’, Matt Garbett 81’) (Dun Ba 90+2’).
Whites’ first game in the capital since 2017.
Grieve was the only member of the starting lineup who was not from Wellington or had played for a club in the city.
Outside of the penalty and the two goals, the All Whites’ best chance fell to midfielder Marko Stamenic, who forced a save out of Junling after rifling a shot from the edge of the area.
Although the All Whites had most of the ball, goalkeeper Oli Sail was still kept busy.
He tipped a long-range effort from Shinhao Wei over the crossbar in the first half and stopped a Yang Liu free-kick from rocketing into the top corner in the second half.