After a draw with China in Auckland on Thursday, interim All Whites head coach Darren Bazeley is keen to see his side get the win in the capital. 

Speaking to media ahead of the game, Bazeley said he felt his side had unfinished business after a strong first 60 minutes of the game was changed by Tommy Smith’s sending off:

“The other night we feel we had a lot of good possession and created some good chances, but it didn’t quite drop for us. 

“We had a good plan to finish the game in a really attacking style, we started bringing on people like Joe Bell and Eli Just with 30 minutes to go, as well as having other attacking options on the bench like Marco Rojas, Callum McCowatt and Alex Greive to come on and try to win us the game, which was the game plan. The red card sort of changed that for us.

“I thought we showed really good character to try to play a certain style of football with 10 men and actually we still created a couple of good chances.” 
 

Chris Wood will miss out with injury and Tommy Smith is suspended but the other 22 members of the squad are fit to start. 

The All Whites face China at 4pm on Sunday 26 March at Sky Stadium, Wellington. 

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Article added: Sunday 26 March 2023