Football: All Whites left with ‘harsh lesson’ ahead of World Cup campaign

All Whites coach Darren Bazeley did not see the side’s worst loss since he has been in charge coming.

A 4-0 loss to Haiti on Wednesday in a warm-up game ahead of the Football World Cup was not what Bazeley wanted so close to the tournament.

“It was a harsh lesson on effectiveness and ruthlessness,” Bazeley said.

“I don’t think it was something that we expected. When you look at the game, possession was fairly even, chances fairly even, but Haiti were very clinical, very ruthless in those moments and it’s a real harsh lesson for us, especially with tough games coming up.”

The match in Fort Lauderdale, Florida was the first time New Zealand and Haiti had met at any level.

In some ways both sides used the match as a training run with multiple changes made at the half-time break but Bazeley said that was not an excuse for the result.

Bazeley said the team had had good preparation over the past week in Florida, acclimatising to the conditions, which included lightning strikes on game day.

But the level of preparation and research done on their opponent added to the team’s disappointment that they could not get a winning result.

“We’ve had a pretty good run of performances and results over the last few years and we came in with the intentions to really be building towards the World Cup.”

The scoreline was the biggest defeat for the All Whites since 2017 when they lost to Portugal 4-0 under coach Anthony Hudson.

“We’ve defended very well for a number of games in the last few years and we haven’t conceded four goals, we haven’t conceded goals like that.

“So maybe this is a real good lesson for us really early in this campaign that we’re going to need to be better and we’re going to need to be really good in every moment of the game.”

New Zealand’s ability, or lack thereof, to score goals was once again under the microscope.

In the last 12 months the All Whites have now played 11 games for nine goals scored. Nearly half of those goals were scored in the 4-1 win over Chile in March in their final game on home soil before the World Cup and last game before Haiti.

“Football is about goals and that’s something that we need to be better at.”

“We can be better. We definitely need to be better.”

On Sunday it will be the team’s chance to prove it against world number four England in their final warm-up game in Tampa ahead of their first World Cup game against Iran on 16 June in Los Angeles.