New Zealand is headed to the World Cup.
After a scoreless first leg, New Zealand booked its passage to South Africa 2010 by defeating Bahrain 1-0 on Saturday in front of their home crowd at Westpac Stadium. It took a 45th minute goal from Rory Fallon and a penalty save from Mark Paston to give New Zealand the victory on aggregate, and a place in next year's World Cup.
The All White's appearance in next summer's tournament will be their second ever, and first since Spain 1982. New Zealand also played in the Confederations Cup in South Africa earlier this year.
What do you think of New Zealand qualifying for the World Cup? Happy to see them get through? Do you feel for Bahrain?
Share your thoughts below.
This has to be the easiest route to qualifying for any team (other than South Africa).
Good for them. Hope we share a group.
Reveal the result? Every soccer-related site has a story on New Zealand qualifying.
Boyens is going to the BIG Game. Good on ya!
It would be fantastic to be drawn into a group with South Africa and New Zealand.
Congrats Kiwis… I hope we end up in the same group, because your team is still rubbish.
How in the world did tunisa find a way not to qualify.
cold water in the face…increasing the field to 32 only means more mediocre teams like NZ get to the WC and quickly lose 3 games. a big revenue grab by Blatter and his greedies. I say this from CONCACAF where the USA’s presence is now almost guaranteed with the 3.5 spots allocated. It’s all about the money, dudes.
I wish good luck for newzealand football team. I expect that newzealand will shown well performance in South Africa. They will hard contest with all countries like as Argentina, Brazil,Spain,Germany and England.
ITS SHOWED AT 2am AT NITE OR THE EAST COAST. ITS NOT FRANCO’S FAULT YOU COULDNT STAY UP BUDDY.
hey dumbos — it wasn’t a penalty save if you saw it…the guy basically rolled it to the keeper.
Nice job to reveal the result considering the game is going to be televised later this afternoon….
Geez! Bush league…….
and another reason I wan Uruguay to win… CR wins odds are we’d not get this pot
Blohkin…sorry mate but you are talking out of your arse mate… Also I think Costa Rica has a better than 50/50 chance to beat Uruguay especially if they roll it up @ Saprissa.
my take is that this is not good for the U.S. in terms of World Cup draw. Had Bahrain won and Costa Rica found a way to beat Uruguay (I know, not that likely) in the pot there would be 5 Asian teams that qualified and 4 from CONCACAF, along with 2 from CONMEBOL (Argentina and Brazil would be seeded anyhow). This would make it less likely that Asian and CONCACAF teams would be drawn together in the same pot, since there’d be 9 total- maybe US would get a special pot, or something like that. Now, with 4 Asian teams, FIFA is likely to put Asian and CONCACAF teams together…
this will lessen the chances of US drawing an easy opponent.
Yep…didn’t see that one coming!
BB is starting Spector at CB http://twitter.com/ussoccer
How could you not be thrilled for the All Whites and Ryan Nelson in particular. I hope he is able to stay injury free and participate in the greatest event of his career.
I WC teams will be hoping to draw them first and us second next summer. With the draw rigged to favor the big teams, I don’t see us having any chance to play them
well said…i hope they play us…
congrats all whites!
Very happy for the Kiwis. Ryan Nelson is the epitome of what any club would want in a team captain. MLS was fortunate to have him for the time he played with DCU.
Here hoping they draw with the Yanks.
If Ireland gets in also beer sales could be monumental at SA 10′. The Kiwi team and fans will enjoy their trip to South Africa there is no doubt about that. New Zealand is a great sporting nation that has always punched above its weight class in Rugby and Cricket this victory should help inspire a new generation of footballers.
Tough loss for Bahrain and the Middle East. A big region of the World won’t be represented with this loss but hopefully they will bounce back and maybe encourage some of their prospects to play abroad for experience. In the the end football crazy Asia should be stronger with the inclusion of Australia.