NATIONAL LEAGUE REvIEW FUTSAL WHITES ... - Futsal4all - Futsal

22“New Zealand futsal is developing verywell, i believe we are two steps ahead ofNew Zealand Football | FUTSAL “The Power of Five” Black & White © CreativeBank 2010where we were last year.”New Zealand Football | FUTSAL “The Power of Five” Black & White © CreativeBank 2010Has playing in the National Futsal Leaguehelped you in your preparations for theFutsal Whites?The National League this year has been ahuge help in the preparation for the WorldCup Qualifiers coming up in Fiji,the level ofcompetition was very high and we need toplay a lot more games like that in order forus to improve as a team!PHOTO: OFCAs you build up to the 2011 OFCChampionships, what is the feelingamongst the squad? Do you feel you havea chance of qualifying for the 2012 WorldCup?The squad this year is looking good andwe all feel like we have a big chance toqualify for the World Cup. We had a greatexperience last year and this year weadded some very good players to the squadincluding the O-League Player of the Year,Daniel Koprivcic, and the ex-Waitakere andAuckland city player Jakub Sinkora. Thesetwo players bring a lot of experience andability to the team and we believe we canchallenge anyone with the squad we have.Obviously Solomon Islands are a bigthreat to everyone. How about the otherisland nations? Any thoughts on who theother strong contenders are and how NewZealand can combat them?Solomons are by far the toughest opponentwe have faced - they play some amazingfutsal and it will be a tough task beatingthem. We obviously have a lot of respectfor Solomon Islands and relish the chanceto play them again. Against them we needto try and keep the ball for as long as wecan as last year I think we spent about 80percent of the time defending which madeus very tired. But the first half performanceagainst Solomon Islands last year when wewere 3-2 ahead gives us a lot of hope thatwe can produce quality with which we canplay against them. From the other teamsI would pick out Fiji and Vanuatu - both ofwhich are in our group.Do you think futsal in New Zealand isdeveloping well? Is there anything youwould like to see to help build the game inthis country?I think that New Zealand futsal isdeveloping very well, I believe we are twosteps ahead of where we were last year. Iwould like to see more tournaments like thenational league happening throughout theyear and maybe a few trips over the ditchto play top Australian teams as I believeplaying these teams will make us better.Obviously qualifying for the 2012 WorldCup is a huge ambition for you. Do youhave any other plans for your futsal andfootball over the next year or so?Qualifying for the Word Cup 2012 is notonly an ambition - it is a dream for all ofus in the New Zealand team. Representingyour country at the world cup at the sportwe all love is something words cannotdescribe, a huge honour and privilege andI hope we will be able to make this dreamcome true! Next years plans all dependon whether we qualify for the World Cup2012 - if we do - futsal will be all I will beconcentrating on.