KEY POINTS:
Disenchanted with the rusty first-up effort in their loss to Costa Rica in the tour opener in San Jose yesterday, All Whites coach Ricki Herbert is promising changes for the second match against Venezuela on Friday.
"I'm disappointed and it takes a lot to disappoint me," said Herbert
from the team hotel last night.
"At the end of the day, you have an expectation around a player and players but I didn't see that today.
"It took a 19-year-old to come on and provide me with what I was looking for," said Herbert in praising 63rd-minute substitute Chris James.
"He gave us some spark and was quite a topic at the post-match press conference."
Asked whether that will translate into a start against Venezuela, Herbert said absolutely.
It will almost certainly mean a change in formation. Herbert said he is determined to accommodate James, which will mean falling back to a more conventional 4-4-2 line-up than the 3-5-2 he went with yesterday.
That will probably mean Tony Lochhead and Noah Hickey dropping back to play as fullbacks rather than the wingback roles they were given and the dropping of either Steven Old or Che Bunce to allow that.
Short of playing time together, short of practice on an unfamiliar and difficult artificial surface and underdone with too many players not having played at any level for weeks, they struggled.
In many ways it was a result reminiscent of their first-up effort against Chile last year when they were beaten 4-1.
After surviving a third-minute raid by the home side, and a couple more soon after as the Costa Ricans cashed in on defensive hesitancy, the Central Americans opened the scoring in the eighth minute when the New Zealand defence was split apart and punished for some sloppy marking as Alvaro Saborio lifted the ball over advancing goalkeeper Mark Paston.
Eleven minutes later it was 2-0 as the home quickly counter-attacked after Bunce had needlessly surrendered possession and played the ball into the unmarked Alonso Solis who fired his long-range left-foot shot into the All Whites goal.
New Zealand's only half chance in that first half came in the 39th minute when Jeremy Brockie fired a hopeful long-range shot wide.
Twelve minutes into the second half any hopes of a New Zealand fightback were dashed when Bryan Ruiz, again from the edge of the penalty area, capitalised on a dreadful defensive mix-up to snap his effort into the bottom corner.
The All Whites lifted their game briefly but without ever testing the home side and it was little surprise when they increased their lead late in the game, although it took a dodgy call from the linesman who ruled a penalty after the ball had been fired on to captain Danny Hay's arm. From the spot Saborio made no mistake.
On attack, the All Whites offered little and showed the yawning gap left by Vaughan Coveny's retirement and Chris Killen's unavailability through injury. Shane Smeltz and Brockie tried but had little ball and few half chances to ask questions of the Costa Rican defence and goalkeeper.
"It is not helping that 80 per cent of the players went into the game without football for eight weeks," said Herbert. "And it won't get any easier."
The team face a gruelling 10-hour travel schedule today to get to Venezuela to play a team fresh from yesterday's 3-1 win over Cuba.
Herbert, as ever, refuses to look for excuses but admits it is not easy when injuries cost him players such as Ryan Nelsen, Simon Elliott, Killen and David Mulligan who he says would all have started yesterday.
