Barbarouses ready to step up for NZ

New Zealand striker Kosta Barabarouses is ready to lead the line for the tournament favourites.

“It’s not often, when we play in other windows, we’re favourites. We have to acknowledge we’re favourites to win and control the things we can control. We have to know it’s not going to be easy, there’ll be challenges, and we have to be mature and deal with that in the right way. We have to do the basics right, and the rest will have to take care of themselves,” Barbarouses tells Football in Oceania following the All Whites’ training session Monday.

The Kiwis play their opening game against the Solomon Islands on Tuesday. The Solomon Islands lost their first match against Vanuatu and now needs a good result against New Zealand.

“It probably lowers the chance of them playing five at the back and defend the whole game, but then again they might do it anyway and hope for a counter attack or two. We know regardless, its not going to be simple. We’re going to have to be on top of our game to get the job done,” Barbarouses says.

Goalscoring responsibility

With Nottingham Forest’s Chris Wood not in the squad, because he is getting married at the time of the tournament, it’s Barbabarouses who’s looked at as one of the main men to score the goals for the Kiwis.

He’s coming off a solid A-League season, where he netted 13 times in 28 appearances for Wellington Phoenix.

“I haven’t always been a striker, but the last couple of years I’ve moved into that. I’ve had a good year this year, scoring a lot for my club. I deal with responsibility very well usually and I’m the most senior player here, so I need to lead the boys. We have a couple of very good young strikers ready to make an impression. I want to score the goals, but I also want to guide the other guys to do the job as well,” he says.

Monday’s training session was held on a pitch “in the middle of nowhere”, roughly 15 minutes outside Vanuatu’s capital of Port Vila. Barbarouses is a veteran of Nations Cup and knows the conditions aren’t always what they may be used to back home in New Zealand.

“It’s part of the challenge, you know. It’s a challenge just playing two touch-passing. I think the stadium will be a little bit better, but like I said, it’s part of being in the islands and being in Oceania. It’s part of the beauty of it, you just have to embrace it. I’ve been to a many of these tournaments over the years, so I know what to expect, but for many of our guys it’s their first time, and you need to sort of help them deal with the challenges we face. But from what I’ve seen these last few days, they’ve done that pretty well.”

The humidity of Vanuatu is also a challgenge for some players, and may dictate a bit of the pace of play come game time on Wednesday.

“Game management is probably the biggest challenge. Its not realistic to go 100 miles an hour for the entire game in this humidity, so we need to pick our moments. We need to control the game and pick the moments you go on attack. After three or four forward runs or sprints you lose your breath for a few minutes, so if we have control of the game we can control when we go on the offensive,” Barbarouses says.

“Good chance to win a trophy”

He’s one of the veterans in a squad that is also put together with a look at the 2024 Olympics in Paris in a few weeks time.

“We have some very exciting young players in our team and a good mix. So getting everyone together and stamping what we want to do in the first game has been very good,” he says of the time the team has spent since arriving in Vanuatu a few days ago.

They’ve also had extra time to prepare, as their first game was cancelled because of New Caledonia’s withdrawal.

“There’s a lot of players, 6 or 7, that could make their debut tomorrow. Some of them came on the last tour bit didn’t play. I think to give them as much time as possible is good. They’re really looking forward to it and it’s a good chance for us as a nation to win a trophy,” Barbarouses says.