Coach favours basic approach to Saudi match

Press, 19 December 1981, Page 64

Coach favours basic approach to Saudi match

NZPA staff correspondent

Riyadh The players of the New Zealand soccer team are facing two psychological hurdles as they begin the final countdown to today’s vital World Cup qualifying game against Saudi Arabia.

The first barrier to be surmounted is simply for them to believe that they can score the five goals that will make them equal on goal average with China and earn a replay for the last berth in the 1982 World Cup finals, or better still, score six to advance automatically. The Kiwis felt a tremendous let-down when their dearly-sought victory over Kuwait was snatched from them in the last 30 seconds of Monday’s game. A realistic chance of qualification for Spain — a win of any sort over Saudi Arabia was all that would have been required — instantly became a remote possibility when Sami Al Hashash nodded his goal. The players now have to convince themselves that like Argentina in the .1978 World Cup who scored six goals against Peru to enter the semi-finals, the job can be done. The second hurdle before them lies in establishing confidence in their ability to perform well on the alien astroturf surface at the Halez Stadium. “Really, it’s an entirely different ball game on astroturf and obviously very much in the Saudis’ favour. It’s a major difficulty that we could very well do without at this time,” the New Zealand coach, Mr John Adshead, said yesterday. Saudi Arabia at home was a very tough team as was proved when Kuwait was fortunate to get a 1-0 win here, he said. The astroturf surface, which is totally unfamiliar to several of the New Zealand players, produces a higher bouncing and faster ball than on grass. With the need for

one-touch control, the ball must be kept on the ground and Mr Adshead said the Kiwis would be concentrating on attacking down the middle of the field. “If you don’t strike through the middle, nine times out. of 10 you run into problems,” he said. The Saudis occasionally looked suspect under high balls at Auckland as they indulged in ball-watching and could be even weaker today with the absence through suspension of their captain and centre back. Salih Al-na’eema. Mr Adshead said the Kiwis would still look to swing in crosses from the by-line but he believed that, percentagewise, balls through the middle and at the feet would bring the greatest reward. The New Zealand team, entrusted with the job of enacting the country’s lastgasp attempt to get to Spain, is likely to be the same as that which played marvellously well to draw with Kuwait with one exception. The exception will be the replacement of mid-fielder, Grant Turner, who is also suspended for the game. Turner’s former Gisborne City clubmate, Keith Mackay, appears the most likely to return to the side, although Mr Adshead said he was also considering playing the squad’s other mid-field-ers, Allan Boath and Peter Simonsen. The New Zealand coach said that he had decided to retain a conventional line-up rather than reduce his defenders and put more men up front in the desperate search for goals. “If we want to build the likes of a 6-0 result, we should go about it with some care rather than

putting all Our eggs in one basket and going for broke. “If we tried something radical, we would be likely to get to 4-0 and then find ourselves punished for our stupidity by them putting in a goal,” he said. With the. exception of Salih, the Saudis are likely to field a team similar to that which drew 2-all with New Zealand in Auckland. Like New Zealand, they will not name their team until later, but their assistant coach, Mr Joao Medina, said yesterday that the new captain would be Yosuf Khamees, who shifts from the left wing to mid-field. The danger man for New Zealand will again be the striker, Majid Abdulla, who scored both his side’s goals in Auckland and looked by far the sharpest of the Saudis in practice this week. A logical assessment suggests that the New Zealanders have only , a remote chance of scoring the five or six-goal win required today. Mr Adshead probably summed the situation up when he said: “We will have to play well to even get a win. To get a five-goal win, we'll need every break that we haven’t had in the last few games.” Nevertheless, the fact remains that defensively, the Saudis are the most vulnerable side in the qualifying group. The Chinese shot four goals past them in the second half in Peking and, altogether, they have conceded 11 goals. The Kiwis showed against Kuwait that they have the ability to create good scoring chances. Today is the day when those chances simply must be buried into the back of the Saudi net.

Despite several requests, the New Zealanders have yet to be given the starting time of the match although it is likely to be 3 p.m. local time (1 a.m. New Zealand time tomorrow). The referee will be Mr C. Corver, of the Netherlands.