New Zealand eye Belgium shock as World Cup surprises fuel belief
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VANCOUVER, June 25 : New Zealand coach Darren Bazeley pointed to the World Cup’s string of surprises as proof his bottom-placed team can pull off an upset in their do-or-die Group G showdown with Belgium on Friday.
Bazeley’s team have a solitary point, having drawn 2-2 with Iran before suffering a 3-1 loss to Egypt. Now they face the daunting prospect of taking on Belgium’s star-studded attack featuring Kevin De Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku and Jeremy Doku, despite the Europeans’ sluggish start to the tournament.
New Zealand, still searching for their first-ever World Cup win, must beat Belgium and hope Iran fail to overcome group leaders Egypt if they are to progress to the knockout phase as group runners-up, although they could also progress as one of the eight best third-placed sides.
“This World Cup there have been lots of results already, and yesterday we watched South Africa beat South Korea, and we just finished watching Germany get beaten (by Ecuador) – a team go from one point to four points and qualify,” Bazeley told reporters on Thursday.
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“So yeah, we have to believe. We definitely have belief within the camp, we have to believe that we’re good enough, we have to believe that we can go and get a win tomorrow and achieve what we wanted to do, and that is to try and make history and get out of the group at a World Cup.
“The opportunity is there for us, for the players to go out and do exactly that.”
Captain Chris Wood remains central to New Zealand’s hopes. The 34-year-old Nottingham Forest striker has yet to score at the tournament but has contributed two assists in as many matches.
“He is a goal scorer, he’s a Premier League player and this World Cup is littered with the top players in the world scoring goals,” Bazeley said.
“It’s hard for Woodsy – he does so much hard work for us and leads the line. We haven’t really given him the perfect service right now or got him the chances, because we know when he gets a chance he’s going to score – that’s what he does for a living.
“So we haven’t been able to give him enough moments for those chances. They’ve fallen to other players, and we’ve had players who have taken their moments, but we need to feed Woodsy and get him into areas where we know he can go and score goals for us.”
Source: Reuters
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