June 2010. New Zealand were knocked out of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa at the group stage, their first World Cup finals appearance since 1982, following three very respectable draws against Italy, Paraguay and Slovakia. Despite failing to qualify for the knock-out stages, The All Whites were the only unbeaten team in the tournament with even eventual winners Spain tasting defeat in the group stages.
Fast-forward five years and the New Zealand national team has fallen off of the footballing radar. An embarrassing showing at the 2012 Oceania Nations Cup saw Tahiti qualify for the Confederations Cup after a semi-final exit at the hands of New Caledonia, while twelve months later Mexico put an end to the Kiwi's 2014 World Cup bis with a heavy playoff win.
Coach Ricky Herbert was replaced by young Englishman Anthony Hudson as the national manager in 2014, but even he couldn't lift the teams fortunes following an embarrassing administration error that saw New Zealand kicked out of the Olympic Qualifying tournament at the Pacific Games. A lack of games has seen NZ fall to 131 in the FIFA World rankings as an important year approaches with the Oceania Nations Cup and 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifiers coming up.
Young, untested manager Ryan Mills has been appointed as the new manager of New Zealand to replace Hudson, who unsurprisingly handed in his notice due to a lack of support from NZF and has since returned to England to join the coaching staff at West Ham United.
With the Oceania Nations Cup scheduled for June 2016, my first priority will be to play some games, with six internationals arranged in the Autumn.
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Another important piece of business was to appoint an experienced number two.
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Former Blackburn and Tottenham defender, and more recently Toronto FC manager, Ryan Nelsen has agreed to become my assistant manager.
I have strong values and will only select players that want to play for the national team, with only professional players being considered. Winston Reid (West Ham), Chris Wood (Leeds) and Tommy Smith (Ipswich) are our three most well known players all playing in England, but the likes of Marco Rojas and Ryan Thomas are doing well in Europe while their is a promising group of younger players starting to emerge in NZ and Australia.
There is a lack of depth to the squad which must be addressed, whether bringing through younger players to give them international experience or searching the globe for players that are eligible for NZ, I must find some new blood to strengthen the squad if we want to qualify for Russia 2018.