The All Whites have suffered their first defeat of the Football World Cup, left gutted after surrendering a halftime lead in a 3-1 loss to Egypt in Vancouver on Monday.<\/p>\n
New Zealand looked on course for a famous result after producing arguably their strongest half of football at a World Cup, only for Egypt to storm back after the break and leave the All Whites ruing what might have been.<\/p>\n
“It’s pretty gutting, pretty disappointing on our behalf after such a strong first-half performance, to let the second half go the way that it did,” goalscorer Finn Surman said.<\/p>\n
“I think we let them into the game a little too much.”<\/p>\n
The All Whites had stunned Egypt in the 15th minute when centre-back Surman rose highest to head home from a set piece.<\/p>\n
The goal was just the third of Surman’s international career and capped a memorable moment for the Portland Timbers defender, who had played more minutes than any other All White since New Zealand qualified for the tournament.<\/p>\n
“It was a pretty awesome feeling, I can’t really downplay that,” Surman said.<\/p>\n
“It was an amazing moment for myself and my family. It’s disappointing we could not carry that out through the game.”<\/p>\n
New Zealand’s 1-0 advantage at halftime marked the first time the All Whites had led at the break in a World Cup match, with coach Darren Bazeley praising his side’s opening 45 minutes.<\/p>\n
“It’s disappointing, because we were so good in the first half,” Bazeley said.<\/p>\n
“We dominated possession and created a lot of chances.”<\/p>\n
But Egypt emerged after halftime with greater urgency and quickly swung momentum in their favour, scoring three goals in 24 minutes.<\/p>\n
The Pharaohs equalised in the 58th minute when Mostafa Zico capitalised on a cross that was not dealt with inside the penalty area.<\/p>\n
Just nine minutes later, captain Mohamed Salah put Egypt ahead, calmly finishing beyond Max Crocombe after New Zealand failed to clear the danger.<\/p>\n
The decisive blow arrived in the 82nd minute when substitute Trezeguet headed home from a set piece, sealing Egypt’s first World Cup victory and leaving the All Whites crestfallen.<\/p>\n
“The third goal hurt us because it was from a set play,” Bazeley said.<\/p>\n
“We could have stayed in the game and looked for the equaliser.”<\/p>\n
The scenes after the final whistle only heightened the disappointment for the New Zealand camp as Egypt celebrated a result that sent them to the top of Group G.<\/p>\n
“This is going to hurt,” Bazeley said.<\/p>\n
“The first half was so strong, and then we let it go. These guys are out there celebrating and it could have been us.”<\/p>\n
Despite the setback, the All Whites remain in contention to reach the knockout stages and make history. They meet Belgium in their final group stage match on Saturday, needing a win to assure their place in the round of 32.<\/p>\n
“It doesn’t get any easier, but we are still one game away from making history,” Bazeley said.<\/p>\n
Egypt now sit top of Group G as the only side in the group to have recorded a win.<\/p>\n
Read how the game unfolded below:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The All Whites have suffered their first defeat of the Football World Cup, left gutted after surrendering a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-489522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}