This evening Tommy Smith's New Zealand could take a big step toward Brazil 2014. A massive task to overcome Mexico in the play off over two legs with the first leg tonight. If Tommy can inspire New Zealand to a clean sheet with a captain's performance they will be well poised for the return leg in a week's time. It's an incredibly tall order but he could be the first Town player to turn out at two World Cups since Terry Butcher. I've just looked up and seen that the game is free for Virgin Media customers on Premier Sports (you can subscribe to that channel with Sky too or probably have no sweat finding a stream online for the game) With England in good shape up against Chile on Friday and Germany next week this is finally an international break worth missing Saturday football for! For the doubters I loved what MM had to say. Tommy will be playing in a packed 105,000 capacity stadium for a chance to play at a World Cup in Brazil. It doesn't come any bigger than that short of playing in the finals itself. Mick McCarthy: “Those play-off games are huge, they’re just crazy. I’ve been an international manager so there was no way I’d have stood in his way. This is qualifying for a World Cup in Brazil, this isn’t messing about. “I remember getting in the Ireland squad when I was at Manchester City. I went away in ‘84 and played in my first tournament in Japan. I vivdly recall feeling more confident and a better player when coming back to City in the summer.”
Huge match for him, and New Zealand, lets hope the skipper and his team come up trumps. Would like to watch this game. In my opinion the league fixtures for the top two divisions should not have their Saturday fixtures cancelled for two matches which don't even follow the basic rules of football, okay its a centenary celebration, but I'm not sure they need to play two matches, surely it would have been less selfish to play a friendly in the middle of the week, and leave the Saturday, its most certainly come at the wrong time for us, we have no injuries, and we have momentum from a superb second half performance at Blackpool, greedy FA trying to claw some money back for the expensive Wembley Stadium, for the supporters who like these kind of matches it would surely be fairer to use other venues around the country, but money dictates
This weekends games would have been suspended long ago, even b4 the season starts as it was always going to be the designated week for the final round of qualifiying/play offs for the World Cup. All of the top leagues across the Europe/World are suspended this weekend.! 1 Bad result in our last 2 qualifiers and it would have been us with 2 massive games this week. The England Under 21s tour the country with their fixture; MKD on Thursday & Shrewsbury next week.!
Roy Hodgson approached it so well Hoppers, instead of nervously picking up the points he threw Townsend in and we went out, attacked and smashed it. Mick does the same thing and we get an amazing result at Blackpool. Don't think that would work so well for the All Whites somehow tho!
If Tommy and the all whites can keep it close they will have half a chance if sneaking through next week, Mexico have not been that good this time around.!
DO NOT DOWNLOAD ANYTHING, DO NOT INSTALL ANYTHING, DO NOT UPDATE ANYTHING If any adverts appear look for the small x in the corner to close it... just about to kick off heres the link http://neolive.eu/169179/1/Watch-Mexico-vs-New-Zealand--FWCQ-2014-/
3-0 now. Far cry from their World Cup game vs Italy and Mexico are without any of their European-based players.
Oh well, maybe they can sign up the All-blacks rugby squad to play in the second leg, and frighten el gringo into losing 4-0!
Of course the reverse side to all this, is that he made himself unavailable for a league match, for the club who pay his wages. It is going to hard to see how he can be considered for selection, in a crucial match we have against high flying Leicester City, the second leg of the New Zealand game is on Wednesday, even if he avoids any kind of injury, he's hardly going to be in prime condition for the Saturday, seems a bit selfish to me
If it clashes with our league games I have a big problem yes, because he is contracted to us, and we pay his wages, don't mind him playing for them as long as he is able to report back in decent time, to be available for selection for our next match. If you pay out for a season ticket, you should be entitled to have all players available for selection, seems a fair deal to me. I wouldn't release him to play for New Zealand in friendly matches however
truth seeker - if you want to be selfish from a Town point of view bear in mind he's a much better player for us and a lot more motivated as a result of his experiences with the All Whites. He came out afterwards and got it bang on the money - they gave the Mexicans too much respect. That was a big game experience he would never get at Town at the moment and the whole squad will benefit from his involvement. I don't think there's any way he will play against Leicester but if you don't want him at the club because of his commitment and ability that's obviously no loss to you anyway, is it?
Completely agree. Tommy has grown into a solid player for us and I have no doubt that his international experience has benefited his development hugely. Defenders perhaps need to be able to read the game better than any other player on the pitch - the more experience he gains playing against different oppositions, with different team mates all around the world, the better he will become for us.
Surely it's down to the club. If ITFC were going to object to him playing for his country they wouldn't have signed a New Zealander in the first place.
If Mings establishes himself in the team we could have more trouble on the horizon, he can choose to play for Barbados, you could get a situation where he jets off midweek, to play say Jamaica in a friendly match, sorry this is getting ridiculous
So it's ok for these "foreigners" to bombard our leagues and inhibit the growth of our youngsters...but only if they're not good enough to play internationally....quality!!!
