Emblen and his coaching staff, which includes former All White Chris Zoricich, will get a chance to run their eye over other Group A members Tonga and potential play-off adversaries from Group B in tomorrow’s early games and on Sunday when the Oly Whites enjoy a bye.
They head into their opener with little knowledge of their opponents but expect Emblen’s counterpart, former Australia national team coach Frank Farina, to have his team primed for an upset.
“I’m sure Frank Farina’s time with Papua New Guinea has made them more tactically astute and given them a better defensive shape given his experience in international football,” Emblen says.
“It will be a tough game and, while we know a couple of their players, the difficulty in this first fixture is we don’t know a lot about them as a team. We’ll do our homework over the first two match days and be ready to do the job when we play again on Tuesday.
“By Tomorrow night we’ll have a better idea of the shape of the rest of the tournament.”
That mystery, allied to Emblen’s confidence in the team’s attacking options, has prompted an understandably watchful approach to the start of the campaign.
“We worked more on our defensive shape than our attacking play and that’s largely due to the caution needed for the first game. We need to be hard to beat, strong and compact as a group first and foremost because I do think we’ve got plenty of goals in the team going forward.”
Emblen will likely plump for a back four of Ian Hogg, James Musa, Michael Eagar and Adam Thomas but still has decisions to make over late arrivals Jake Gleeson and Greg Draper. Goalkeeper Gleeson arrives today from Portland while in-form striker Draper has trained only once since arriving on Wednesday afternoon from Wales.
Midfielder Marco Rojas plays for Melbourne Victory on Friday night before flying out to join the squad for the remaining matches.
“There were tough choices all over the pitch and the strength of the squad is good. Everybody in the squad is pushing everyone else to the absolute max which is exactly what you want,” Emblen says.
“The back four are probably the segment of the team that works itself out earlier than the rest but everybody is still being challenged. Players like Tim Myers, Tristan Pratley and Anthony Hobbs won’t start but are pushing the others all the way.”
Regardless of whether Emblen opts to use Draper, he still has a tough choice to make between his other forward options. Dakota Lucas and Sean Lovemore are proven performers at U-20 level, Team Wellington’s Louis Fenton has hit a rich vein of form in the second half of the ASB Premiership season while Ethan Galbraith and Daniel Saric allow a flexibility of approach.
Emblen says all players are now chomping at the bit to get underway.
“We had our player meetings on Wednesday and they mood was pretty good. They’re obviously excited but there’s a lot of nervous tension and energy around and they just want the games to kick off so they can put in the performances we want and need to.”
Kick-off is at 5pm and is preceded by the Solomon Islands’ clash against Fiji at noon and Vanuatu versus American Samoa at 2.30pm.
Tickets for the matches can be purchased from the gate and are priced at $10 for adults and $5 for teenagers/over-65s, while ages 12 and under can enter for free.
Story courtesy of New Zealand Football.
For more on New Zealand Football visit www.nzfootball.co.nz

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