AUCKLAND – The Oly-Whites will concentrate on clearing away distractions – wanted and unwanted – and focus on their on-field mission of getting a result against Olympic hosts China in Shenyang on Thursday night.
New Zealand’s U-23 footballers could be forgiven for being swayed by the local media attention that invariably comes with playing the host nation the day before the Olympic Games opening ceremony or even the hostile 60,000 strong crowd awaiting them at Shenyang Olympic Stadium.
They might also be distracted by their eye-opening Olympic Village experience or the training ground injury that looks set to rule defender Jack Pelter out of the tournament, but New Zealand coach Stu Jacobs says the focus will be entirely on winning come kick-off.
“The team needs to bottle all that off-field stuff and concentrate on the task at hand which is beating China,” Jacobs said.
“We know what we need to do but we temper that with knowledge of the size of the challenge.
“The focus for Chinese football has been on the Olympic team rather the national team and the country is expecting a medal. They’ve been preparing for four years and have played around 90 internationals in that time.”
With just two teams progressing from a group that also contains heavyweights Brazil and a Belgium side that the TAB has ranked fifth favourite to claim the gold medal, New Zealand’s first game is crucial for their second-round aspirations.
“It’ll be bloody tough to beat China, but we need a result to give us a chance getting into the next round.”
During the Oly-Whites’ three day stay in the Beijing’s Olympic Village, the team received some advice from New Zealand Olympic Team mentor Sarah Ulmer to help their focus.
“Sarah spoke to the team about walking on to the field and taking 10-15 seconds to remember why they’re here. By all means, soak up the atmosphere but then push it aside and doing the job,” Jacobs said.
With the weight of expectation squarely on the shoulders of the home side, Jacobs saw the first 30 minutes as the most important for his side as they look to find their feet and build pressure on China.
“What we’ve shown over our build-up is that once we’re past the 25 minute mark and weather that very intense period of the game we can get the ball and play a bit.”
“We need to stay in touch, either level or a goal either side of them and we’ll have every chance.”
“We’ve shown against Australia, Central Coast and through the Indonesian leg that we can create chances, but that first half hour is critical for us.”
“We’re not silly – we’re going to be without the ball for long periods but it [defence] hasn’t been the sole focus on the training pitch.
We’ve got players who are potentially very good with the ball and we’ll have a right go at China.”
With just two foreign based players in the China squad, the names of Manchester United forward Dong Fangzhou – who scored 25 goals on a two-year loan with Belgian side Royal Antwerp – and over-age Charlton midfielder Zheng Zhi will be the names most likely to sound familiar to kiwi fans.
Aside from Jack Pelter – whose injury-forced replacement in the 18-man squad by Wellington Phoenix Greg Draper is yet to be confirmed by the IOC and FIFA – Jacobs has a full squad to choose from heading into their Olympic debut.
Men’s Olympic Football Tournament: Group C
Shenyang Olympic Stadium
Thursday 7 August 7:45 local (11.45pm NZ time)
Live on Freeview and tvnz.co.nz.
New Zealand v China
New Zealand: (from) 1-Jacob SPOONLEY (GK), 2-Aaron SCOTT, 3-Ian HOGG, 4-Cole PEVERLEY, 5-Ryan NELSEN (Captain), 6-Michael BOXALL, 7-Simon ELLIOTT, 8-Craig HENDERSON, 9-Daniel ELLENSOHN, 10-Chris KILLEN, 11-Jeremy BROCKIE, 12-Steven OLD, 13-Shaun VAN ROOYEN, 14-Cole TINKLER, 15-Jack PELTER/Greg DRAPER, 16-Sam JENKINS, 17-Sam MESSAM, 18-Liam LITTLE (GK).
China: (from) 1-QIU Shengjiong (GK), 2-TAN Wangsong, 3-FENG Xiaoting, 4-YUAN Weiwei, 5-LI Weifeng, 6-ZHOU Haibin, 7-HAO Junmin, 8-ZHENG Zhi, 9-GAO Lin, 10-HAN Peng, 11-CHEN Tao, 12-CUI Peng, 13-LU Jianjun, 14-WAN Houliang, 15-JIANG Ning, 16-ZHAO Xuri, 17-DONG Fangzhuo, 18-LIU Zhenli (GK).
Story courtesy of NZF Media. For Full story visit www.nzsoccer.com