Meet the Teams: New Zealand

As Matt takes us group by group through the World Cup teams, I thought I'd jump about in my usual scattershot way and take a peek at one of the cups tiniest minnows: New Zealand.

The All-Whites (as opposed to the All-Blacks, the national Rugby team) are not a discriminatory club, but they aren't exactly expected to do much of anything at the World Cup. In 12 games over four international tournaments (World Cup/Confederations Cups) they've scored four goals and won zero times. With Captain and Defender Ryan Nelsen (of the Blackburn Rovers) and a pair of young Premiership forwards, their best may be able to keep up--for about 15 minutes of their first match...then it's nothing but Italy, Paraguay and a long sad silence.

But rather than focus on the sadness, we Montanan Hooligans want to offer a solution. Instead of their standard team of tired, localized vets, and raw new comers, let's make use of what New Zealand has, through the least amount of wikipedia research possible

Every team should have a cunning and ruthless manager:

A dynamite attacking striker:

A set of creative and surprising midfielders

C couple intimidating defenders:

And an agile, frightening keeper

And we've got a team that could threaten box office records...and probably fare just as well as the actual New Zealand team. So, let's not worry about any of the factual validity of this post and just agree that New Zealand is a land of contrasts.

For MacKenzie Low Budget Sports, I'm Ben MacKenzie