Football: Chile edge Junior All Whites

The Junior All Whites were edged 1-0 by Chile in their first match of a four-team tournament in Doha today.

A 55th minute volley from the South Americans, which left Junior All Whites goalkeeper Oliver Sail with no chance, proved the difference as the New Zealand team rebounded from a flat performance in Wednesday's 4-0 loss to Qatar.

"Chile are a very good team with really good players and they caused us a lot of problems in the first half with their movement and possession played at a high tempo," Junior All Whites coach Darren Bazeley said.

"I would expect Chile to be at the World Cup and watching some of their play tonight, they'd be strong contenders for it. Some of their play was world class and we grew into the game very well.

"Our boys worked really hard, competed really well and restricted them to some chances and showed a lot of heart in the first half.

"With about 25 minutes to go we started getting into the game with the ball and we strung together some really good possession phases and we started putting pressure on Chile."

Substitute Andre de Jong had the best chance for the Junior All Whites as his curling effort was clawed away by the Chile 'keeper in the final quarter of the match with Bazeley saying the side now need to find a way of shortening the time it takes to match the level of top opposition once the whistle blows.

"We're building the confidence to know that if we do work hard and we do compact our team, we can stop them hurting us and then when we've got it we can start to play earlier than we did.

"We need to earn the right to then go and play but we need to be able to do that quicker. The players need to have the confidence that they are in the game earlier than we did today.
"Now what we need to do is put both of them together so we need to be able to match teams physically and compete and then when we get the ball back we need to be more consistent to be able to keep possession ourselves and build play up."

Another key aspect of the tour so far has been the link with the All Whites squad as they prepare for next Tuesday's match against Uzbekistan in Tashkent and Bazeley says with a number of the Junior All Whites having taken part in the senior sessions, the experience has been invaluable for the young players.

"The quality they've got at the All Whites training sessions is unreal. Our players have seen the All Whites level and we've seen the Chile level and hopefully now we're starting to understand if you want to be an All White you've got to keep working and developing."
The Junior All Whites' next match is against Morocco on Sunday at 5am (NZ time).