Billy Harris: NZ Football has a big problem, here's how to fix it

Chris Wood of the Whites walks off injured during the International Friendly match between the New Zealand All Whites and Australia Socceroos. Photo / Photosport.co.nz

OPINION:

New Zealand, we have a problem.

And we've had it a long time.

In four Confederations Cups stretching way back, we've scored three goals in twelve games.

In seven inter-continental World Cup playoff matches since 2010, four goals.

Four goals in six World Cup finals matches (1982 and 2010).

There's no disgrace in struggling to score against Brazil, France, Germany, Spain, Russia, Portugal, etc. Lots of countries have that problem. But ultimately, if New Zealand football is to kick on, we need to start hitting the back of the net, especially against lower tier nations like Northern Ireland, Belarus, Peru, Canada, and Lithuania, who've all been too tough to crack in recent years.

Fast forward to now, when the All Whites are, in many people's opinion, our best ever. But still the problem persists. No goals in the last five games, most crucially in the World Cup qualifier against Costa Rica. Bad luck and bad refereeing were given the blame, but is there a deeper problem?

We now have technicians in midfield capable of giving opponents a geometry lesson and a striker who scores goals in the toughest league in the world yet still, against decent opposition, coach Danny Hay can't find a scoring equation.

Good possession, nice build ups, but as the Australian commentator said during the first of the All Whites' recent losses to the Socceroos, "They're just lacking that one final piece of the jigsaw puzzle."

And the final piece is? A soloist. A player capable of unlocking a defence with individual brilliance, be it a pass, a turn or a dribble. The X-factor. A Maradona, Messi, Salah, Neymar or Mbappe. Or, in Australasian language, a Harry Kewell or Wynton Rufer.

In the book "Barca", author Simon Kuper talks about legendary coach Johann Cruyff, the father of modern football: "Cruyff had captured the need for an unpredictable soloist in his dictum, 'A football team consists of ten people and an outside left (i.e. a soloist)'. As defences became more organised, soloists became even more important.

"Great soloists were the difference between Barcelona and the Spanish national team of their era," says Kuper. "Spain passed like Barcelona, pressed like Barcelona and built walls like Barcelona, but they didn't score like Barcelona, because they didn't have the soloists (eg Messi, Ronaldinho, Neymar). Spain won the World Cup in 2010 by scoring just eight goals in seven games."

Oliver Bierhoff, national team director of the German FA, has a different name for the soloist when describing what needs to happen in Germany: "We don't produce enough players because training has become too formal. We need space for individualists. We have to bring street football back to clubs, create more space for creativity and the pleasure of our players."

Bierhoff may as well have been talking about New Zealand, where the problem can be seen on the sideline of every pitch in the country on a Saturday morning.

Pass it!

Get rid of it!

Don't muck around with it there!

All Whites player Chris Wood walks the Eden Park pitch during the New Zealand All Whites v Australia Socceroos Homecoming International Football match at Eden Park. Photo / Photosport.co.nz

That's not only the parents, it's the coaches too, and the result is that kids who, at eight or nine, are great little dribblers are within a few years "coached" into submission by adults who are terrified young Jack will lose the ball and, heaven forbid, concede a goal. They have the flair scared out of them and become not the soloist they had the potential to be, but just another player.

And it's not only the mum and dad coaches making that mistake. I've seen coaches with all the right badges yelling at nine year olds in training: "Share the ball! Share the ball! SHARE THE BALL!"

I wondered how a kid would dare try something clever in that sort of atmosphere.

When I suggested to one such coach that Lionel Messi didn't share the ball when he was a kid, I was told: "Well, we don't have any Messi's here." I thought: And with you coaching our kids, nor will we.

No, despite one or two like Marco Rojas slipping through the net, dribbling is not the Kiwi way. The Kiwi must be a team player. Share the ball. Don't show off. So we produce team players when what we need are thousands of little individualists around the country, copying the tricks of the stars and inventing their own, developing the skills and the unpredictability that will one day unlock the defence of a Peru or Costa Rica.

Yes, eventually soloists need to learn to pass the ball, and indeed, the mature soloist is not greedy, going on his own only when a pass isn't the better option. He sets up as many goals as he scores. But the soloist takes risks, and in doing so loses the ball more than other players. The good coach allows it, knowing that mistakes are the price of success.

All Whites player Matt Garbett and Socceroos player Thomas Deng during the New Zealand All Whites v Australia Socceroos Homecoming International Football match. Photo / Photosport.co.nz

Every good team has at least one soloist, and of the current All Whites, Elijah Just could one day be worthy of the description. The final piece of the jigsaw puzzle. Or it could be that the answer to New Zealand's problem is currently showing promise in the peewees somewhere near you, figuring out what works and what doesn't, and NOT getting an earful from the sideline.

It's telling though, and a reflection on the New Zealand game, that the three Kiwi players who've succeeded in England's Premier League - Ryan Nelsen, Winston Reid and Chris Wood - are all big, strong, no-nonsense types. When we have a soloist making things happen at Anfield and Old Trafford, the All Whites will really be cooking.

Billy Harris played 18 games for the All Whites between 1980 and 1987, including six 'A' internationals