New Zealand Preview

Saturday sees Charlton welcome New Zealand to the Valley for a game that will hopefully feature more first-teamers than Tuesdays runabout against Welling. Thankfully Monica has promised as much.

Ricki Herbert's All Whites 20-man New Zealand squad were there at Park View to see the "reserves" lose 1-0 after their long-haul flight from down-under and despite their obvious jet-lag I'm sure they were suitably impressed. Saturdays game will be different of course and is their European tour opener followed by a game against Blackburn Rovers on August 16.

New Zealand captain Danny Hay is one of the few players with experience playing outside New Zealand having played 4 games for Leeds several years ago and then a season at Walsall although the 31-year-old central defender rates himself just a 50-50 chance of being fit for after straining his right calf muscle during a training run in Auckland last week. Other players include Halifax Town striker Shane Smelz, midfielder Tim Brown, who plays for the US Richmond Kickers and Fulham youngster Chris James. But the star of the team will undoubtably be midfielder Ivan Vicelich who has played for Dutch club Roda for the last 5 years and has over 50 appearances for New Zealand.

One player definitely not playing for New Zealand will be Blackburn Rovers defender Ryan Nelsen who ironically has been dogged by injury problems since the end of last season, having suffered a hairline fracture of his leg during Rovers' win at Charlton on April 29th.

A scan of their recent games has seen them enjoy ( if that's the word for it ) a 4-1 defeat to Brazil in Switzerland on June 4 although in May they beat Georgia and drew in Estonia. However the aim of Saturdays game was rather put in context by captain Hay explaining "We've already shown we're capable of competing with very good European teams. There are no ranking points on the line so these are practice matches as they are for the clubs, it's all about giving players experience." They'll all set for a thumping then.

For Charlton it'll be the first home game of pre-season and therefore the first time we'll see Iain Dowie patrolling the touchline since he watched Jonathan Fortune's late header relegate his hapless team in May 2005. On this happier occasion, I assume he'll be keen to impress his home fans and therefore play a full strength side. Its even rumored that Darren Bent will at last leave his knife juggling antics in the kitchen and be available to assist Jimmy-Floyd in slicing apart the New Zealand defence. Not for the full game of course as he's not match fit but at last we will enjoy the mouth-watering prospect of at last seeing them together.

For the remainder of the side it'll be much as we left it in May. El Karkouri has returned and seems to have taken over Chris Perrys role alongside Hermann H with Sorondo as another option while Monica seems more than happy to maintain young Nathan Ashton at left-back. In front of Luke Young, Dennis Rommedahl seems set to continue on the wing. After that its guess-work time as Matt Holland, Brian Hughes, Kish, Darren Ambrose and Lloyd Sam "battle" it out for the 3 remaining places.

Nothing further has been mentioned of the four "triallists" at tuesdays game and although that doesn't usually mean much we can only hope that we have another chance to see Spanish midfielder Xavier Farinos, Costa Rican winger Christian Bolanos and young Ivory Coast striker Ismael Fofana.

Meanwhile new squad numbers have been allocated to youngsters Myles Weston, Alistair John, Michael Carvill, Jani Tanska and Rurik Gislason for the first time. Intriguingly the Number 1 is currently vacant......