The All Whites have beaten China 3-0 in Chongqing, ending a six-month run without a win and keeping their first clean sheet in 15 months. Tyler Bindon, Ben Waine and Owen Parker-Price scored in the international friendly, which kicked off at 12.35am on Monday New Zealand time at Longxing Football Stadium.
It was the response head coach Darren Bazeley had asked for after last Thursday’s 2-2 draw with Palestine in the same city, when New Zealand twice took the lead and twice gave it away. 1News reported that Bazeley wanted an improvement and got one. The win is New Zealand’s first since they beat Chile 4-1 at Eden Park in March, and the clean sheet is their first since a 1-0 win over Ivory Coast in Canada in June last year.
The All Whites did not waste time. Inside the first five minutes Callum McCowatt found Bindon unmarked in the box, and the centre-back finished for his fourth goal for his country, RNZ reported. Friends of Football and NZ Sports Wire both put the goal in the fourth minute.
New Zealand kept pressing. Logan Rogerson sent a volley wide and Eli Just hit the left post after a dribbling run, before the second goal arrived in the 29th minute. It came from a passing move involving Just, McCowatt and Ben Old that ended with Waine finishing. The Port Vale striker had also scored against Palestine, so he has two goals from the first two matches of the window. Stuff described it as a stunning team goal.
The third came in the 82nd minute. Moses Dyer, recalled to the squad after eight years away, had a shot saved and Parker-Price reacted first to the rebound. The 27-year-old midfielder, who plays for Swedish club Örgryte, had been on the field for only three minutes. It was his first goal for New Zealand.
The official crowd was 15,160, according to Friends of Football, in a stadium that holds about 60,000. Before the match Bazeley said he welcomed the prospect of a hostile atmosphere. “Players like crowds. The bigger the crowd, the better for most players,” he told Friends of Football. “It makes it more challenging for us, but that’s the challenge that we want.”
He also named the problem he wanted fixed. “We can’t be leading games and keep conceding goals. We’ve put it to the boys, we need to start finding ways to win,” he said. This time New Zealand led from the fourth minute and never let China back in.
The starting side was Alex Paulsen in goal, Callan Elliot, Bindon, Bill Tuiloma, Old, captain Marko Stamenic, McCowatt, Rogerson, Jesse Randall, Just and Waine, according to Friends of Football. Bazeley again used his bench heavily and made eight changes in the second half. Dane Ingham, George Stanger, Dalton Wilkins, Alex Rufer, Stipe Ukich, Sam Sutton, Parker-Price and Dyer all came on. Ukich, the 19-year-old striker who plays in Croatia for NK Istra 1961, won his first cap against Palestine and added a second here.
On paper the result was the one New Zealand should have got. They went into the match ranked 86th in the world and China 91st. Bazeley had described China as “hard-working, very organised” before the game, adding “there’s nothing in them that we haven’t played against before.” China are rebuilding after another failed World Cup qualifying campaign and called 11 uncapped players into their squad for this window.
The win matters more than a friendly usually would. New Zealand’s World Cup in North America ended with a 5-1 loss to Belgium in Vancouver in late June, and Bazeley said after the Palestine draw that his side had repeatedly failed to hold leads at the tournament. His contract runs out at the end of 2026, so the results from this four-match trip, along with two home matches against India in November, will count when New Zealand Football decides what comes next.
The squad now moves to Japan for the Kirin Cup, an invitational tournament Japan has hosted on and off since 1978. This is the first time FIFA has run an extended September and October international window, which is why New Zealand can fit four matches into one trip. New Zealand meet Panama on Thursday, 1 October, with kick-off at 7.10pm New Zealand time. Friends of Football lists the venue as Yokohama International Stadium. It will be the first meeting between the two countries. Panama are ranked 44th but failed to score at the World Cup. The final round is at the National Stadium in Tokyo on 5 October, when the All Whites will play either Japan or Ecuador. Kirin Cup matches level after 90 minutes go straight to a penalty shootout.
After that comes the two-match series against India in Auckland and Christchurch between 12 and 15 November.
Is this the result that turns the All Whites around after a hard World Cup, or is it too early to read much into a win over a rebuilding China side? Tell us what you think in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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