KEY POINTS:
With football on a high after this weekend's David Beckham-inspired record crowds, Waitakere United will this week attempt to continue the buzz at the Club World Cup.
"New Zealand's rugby and cricket players have not been doing that great - we can make people proud of New Zealand
soccer," says Waitakere's Allan Pearce.
His team leave for Japan today to play Iranian club Sepahan on Friday in the first match of the tournament featuring the club champions of Fifa's six confederations.
Should Waitakere cause a massive upset by beating Sepahan, they would play Asian champions Urawa the following Monday. The winner of that match faces European champions AC Milan on the Thursday. Milan are favoured to meet Argentinian giants Boca Juniors in the final in two weeks.
Waitakere captain Danny Hay underlines the difficulty of the task ahead when he points out that "we're a team full of plumbers, electricians and teachers against full-time professionals".
But Waitakere coach Chris Milicich, an advertising account manager, says the amateurs versus professionals image is something of a misnomer, given most of his side have played professionally, some as recently as this year.
"Some players get paid an awful lot of money but their attitude is so amateurish, it's a joke. It's more about your state of mind than the state of your income," says Milicich.
The Club World Cup has total prizemoney of US$16 million. With the Oceania representatives now forced to play a preliminary round, the minimum prizemoney has dropped from US$1 million to US$500,000.
Of the US$500,000, half goes to the seven other NZFC teams and 10 per cent goes to New Zealand Football, with the remaining 40 per cent going to Waitakere to be shared between the club and players.
Should another US$500,000 be gained with a win over Sepahan, Waitakere chairman Rex Dawkins believes his club should receive a larger share of the additional money.
Waitakere play Sepahan at Tokyo's National Stadium, where Peter Snell did his 800m-1500m double at the 1964 Olympics.
Sepahan are coached by Croatian Luka Bonacic, who played professionally in Switzerland, Germany, Spain and Australia before starting his coaching career in New Zealand.
He was player-coach at Central in 1988 and 1989, helping the club win the Northern League first division and a place in the premier division for the first time. Central was not then the power it is now, having spent 22 of the previous 23 seasons languishing in the Northern League's third or fourth divisions.
Bonacic went on to coach in Croatia (including two stints with Hajduk Split), Slovenia and Albania (with Dinamo Tirana) before arriving in Iran four years ago.
He took charge last year at Sepahan, who are at present second in the Iranian Premier League. Sepahan are based in Esfahan, Iran's third-largest city, famed for its carpets, textiles, handicrafts and uranium hexafluoride.
Milicich was in Japan last month to see the second leg of the Asian Champions League final. Urawa beat Sepahan 2-0 to win the title 3-1 on aggregate. Milicich says Sepahan are a strong, physical side, particularly at the back, able to adjust quickly into new formations. They played 3-5-2, then 4-4-2, then 3-4-3 in a bid to get back into the match against Urawa.
None of the Sepahan players stood out as real stars. "If they [Iranian players] are any good, they'll end up in Turkey and then Europe," says Milicich.
The most impressive aspect of the match was the 60,000 Urawa supporters. Milicich inspected the Saitama ground at 10am - nine hours before kickoff - and thousands of fans were already queuing outside the stadium.
"They never stopped singing, chanting and making noise the whole game. It was so loud, I could barely hear myself think."
Waitakere travel to Japan at full-strength, with Neil Emblen the only player under an injury cloud. The former Knights utility has not taken the field since injuring his ankle in Waitakere's O-League win over AS Manu Ura a month ago but is expected to play in Japan.
Waitakere should benefit from the experience of the six men in their squad who were with Auckland City at last year's Club World Cup - Neil Sykes, Paul Seaman, Jonathan Perry, Richard Gillespie, Jason Hayne and coach Craig Alexander.
Milicich is determined his side will not merely sit back in an attempt to keep the score respectable.
"We'll certainly be having a go at them at some stage. We'll go down screaming as hard as we can and if we get absolutely murdered, we get absolutely murdered.