Ricki Herbert has signed a new contract with the New Zealand football Association that will see him be the manager of the New Zealand national football team up until the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil.
New Zealand are one of the teams trying to qualify for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, which will be held in Brazil.
Ricki Herbert has been extraordinarily impressive for the New Zealanders, as he has not only been able to sustain his position as the manager of the New Zealand national football team since 2005, but has also taken the team to the 2010 FIFA World Cup as well. It was the first occasion when New Zealand qualified for the FIFA World Cup.
Ricki Herbert will be hoping to repeat his magic once again, when he will be in charge of the team for the qualification round for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. John Adshead currently holds the record for having managed the New Zealand national football team in 55 matches, while Ken Armstrong has been the longest serving manager so far due to his seven-year stint with the national team. Both these records will be surpassed by Ricki Herbert during the end of this tenure.
“Obviously the numbers are nice to reflect on but at the end of your career. We have a job to do. The focus is reaching Brazil twice and to do that we have to keep winning games on the longest qualification path we’ve had since 1982. We start from a better base this year than we did in 2005 and with a full strength side against Jamaica,” Herbert said. New Zealand’s first match in preparations for the qualifying rounds of the FIFA World Cup will be against Jamaica. New Zealand can enter into the 2013 Confederations Cup with a win at the Oceania Nations Cup.