Soccer: Injuries blot out Tunisia friendly

On the back of their solid performances in Europe, the All Whites have become the flavour of the month.

New Zealand Soccer chief executive Graham Seatter yesterday revealed that the national side had been asked to stay on and play a pre-World Cup game against world No 21 Tunisia.

"We had agreed terms for the match, which would have been played in Frankfurt on Wednesday [today]," said Seatter from Germany where he will attend top-level Oceania Football Confederation and Fifa meetings over the next couple of days.

"Unfortunately, with injuries and player unavailability, we were not able to go through with it but it does show the All Whites are seen as worthy opposition by teams ranked much higher than us.

"Tunisia had paid a US$20,000 [$31,000] deposit to show they were serious. They were looking for another warm-up game as their first World Cup match is not until June 15."

Seatter said there was also growing interest in the All Whites' next European foray.

Matches against English premier league clubs Blackburn Rovers and Charlton Athletic in August are confirmed. But Seatter is keen to secure another couple of games in a place other than Britain.

"Other leagues in Europe start later than England and we have had some encouraging responses elsewhere, with offers of games in other countries," he said.

"Oceania president Reynald Temarii said it is good for the confederation to have a team doing as well as we have and give the OFC credibility on the world stage."

Looking further ahead, Seatter remains hopeful the OFC winner will be given the chance to qualify for the next World Cup through Asia.

"If New Zealand is to be that representative we would hope to get into Asia and be in one of two groups of four playing home-and-away to find four or five teams for the 2010 World Cup."

Monday's Fifa executive meeting in Munich confirmed the format for the World Club Cup in Japan.

It was decided the six confederation representatives will play the December tournament in Yokohama, with the European and South American teams seeded through to the semifinals.

The remaining four teams, including Auckland City as the Oceania representative, will go into an open draw, with the two winners going to the semifinals and the losers playing off for fifth and sixth.

It was confirmed that all teams will get a guaranteed US$1 million.

There had been a suggestion that the Oceania winner would play the J-League winner in a preliminary match to guarantee a Japanese presence at the Toyota-supported competition. The winner of that match would have gone into the final six teams for the cup championship.