Bazeley is contracted until December and will have more time in the dugout later this year, with the All Whites expected to have up to six international matches, including two at home. But the review process from this campaign will begin in July, gathering feedback from players, staff, officials and stakeholders.
Historically, it has been rare for All Whites’ coaches to last beyond one World Cup cycle. Ricki Herbert, who was employed from 2005 to 2013 was the exception, as his success at the 2010 World Cup gave him an unquestioned mandate to continue.
In 2022, Danny Hay resigned after NZF decided to go to the market, while Antony Hudson stepped away after the Peru series in 2017 to pursue an MLS opportunity. Ken Dugdale (1998-2002) had four years, while Mick Waitt (2002-2004) only had around 24 months in charge.
Bazeley made it clear immediately after the Belgium game – and in another interview the following morning – that he wants another shot.
“I’d like to continue – for sure,” Bazeley said. “It’s been a great campaign. I’ve loved every minute of it and the experience here at a World Cup has been amazing.
“We’ve had some moments where we’ve started to show the type of team we can be. We haven’t got the win that we wanted, but it was always going to be tough.
“But I’m proud of the football we have played. To be able to say there’s a New Zealand team playing that style of football, which was really important to the players, they wanted to play a certain style.
“We’ve done a lot of work in the last year, around, ‘okay, that style needs to be result-orientated’ and we’ve got close in a few games.”
Darren Bazeley with his team. Photo/Photosport.
The All Whites made progress in North America – decent progress – but without the big leap forward to truly define this generation. They played sparkling football – and thrilled the nation – but had costly lapses and never gave an impression of complete defensive solidity, despite long periods of determined effort without the ball. But Bazeley maintains the team were good enough to make the knockout stages, even if they ultimately fell short.
“The lads gave it a real go,” said Bazeley. “There’s certain things we need to be better at; we need to be more ruthless, more clinical, we need to have that battle-hardened mentality defensively at times but it’s still a pretty young squad.”
Asked for his biggest regret, Bazeley said it was the failure to make more of the first two matches, particularly the Iran clash when they had the lead twice.
“We didn’t get knocked out by this [Belgium] game,” Bazeley said. “We were leading against Iran twice and we were leading against Egypt and they’re the moments where the points are at stake. We should have been coming into [the Belgium] game probably on four points and this result doesn’t matter.”
The All Whites had their final dinner on Friday night (local time), with a few speeches from various players and staff. Around half the squad then decamped on Saturday morning, with the remainder of the players and all the staff returning to their San Diego base camp on Saturday afternoon, ahead of the flight back to New Zealand from Los Angeles on Sunday night.
The pain was still raw, especially with the realisation that this playing squad may not be together again.
“End of tournaments are horrible,” Bazeley said. “As soon as it happens, people are starting to look at their next steps and getting flights sorted and [some] players have already left to get back to different places.”
Bazeley is tormented by what-ifs, given the fine margins involved in New Zealand’s campaign, where some better defensive decisions in Los Angeles against Iran, in particular, could have seen them planning for a match in Dallas or Vancouver next week.
“I mean, hindsight is a great thing,” Bazeley said. “You’ll never know and it goes through my head all the time. I’m in that stage of bargaining with myself around this whole thing – ‘what if I’ve done that, what if we’ve done that’. There are so many scenarios but you don’t know what the outcome would have been? It definitely lingers in my head; selections, decisions, substitutions, tactics, everything that goes into the whole process.
“We were very close to it working out perfectly and then there are these moments. Ultimately, football is all about moments. We need to defend a set play. We need to defend a cross. Had we done that in certain moments of this tournament, we would probably be going to Dallas.”
Michael Burgess has been a Sports Journalist for the New Zealand Herald since 2005, covering the Olympics, Fifa World Cups, and America’s Cup campaigns. He is a co-host of the Big League podcast.
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