Jim Hopkins: White purifies the hearts of a grubbied nation

Thank heavens for soccer. The beautiful game has done a beautiful thing.

With a single nod of his unknown head, in the very first seconds of the very last minute of a very tense game, with the ugly spectre of defeat gushing unquenched from the Gulf of our dreams, one young player united a nation.

Now, in this tiny sliver of ecstatic time, everybody loves Winston Wiremu Reid.

And so they should. This is Dunkirk with sprigs. It's the America's Cup on grass. It's Rocky meets Roy of the Rovers in a Boys' Own Paper boil-over that's turned the entire tournament upside down on its head in one FIFAntastic moment.

Oh yes. When the underdog barks this loudly, there's no need for hyperbole. The whole world has seen the All Whites of their eyes and know they will shoot to kill.

Better still, for a few marvellous moments, the exultant cheers that rang around a relieved Mafeking Stadium did finally and forcefully silence those b****y boobanzola thingees everyone keeps blowing.

Boy, are they a pain in the. But we shouldn't complain. No sir. Not when our boys have done something the Aussies couldn't and the Poms did when they weren't supposed to. Yes! The All Whites have won a historic draw and, suddenly, life is good.

At last, a care-worn nation steeped in woe, and lately given to gnashing its dentures in despair, can forget about impropriety and stop surfing the slough of despond. We can cast aside our pall of gloom and show corruption the Red Card it so richly deserves.

We can forget about "Hiss" Carter and his various floral arrangements. We can abandon what concern we may have had about Lunching Len, the cesspit gourmet. Quite why Mr Brown chose to put $150.50 on his council card to fund a lunch with North Shore Mayor Andrew Williams is a mystery. If he'd spent $150.50 not to have lunch with Andy the country would have said, "Good on you, old son. You should do it again next week!"

Indeed, so great is the joy young Reid's head has brought us, it has entirely banished from our minds all that righteous indignation we felt about the newly demoted Mr Shame Jones, a man whose penchant for porn has given a totally new meaning to the old adage, "get more bang for your buck".

Mr Jones - soon to be honoured with a great big WILLYWOOD sign perched high on the Rongotai hill - is but a melancholy memory, a sad shadow from the time before glory shone upon us and hope lay in the net.

Now our focus turns to Monday when Italy awaits. And yes, they are World Champions, but so were we in 1987 which just goes to show how quickly things can change - in rugby and in soccer and quite probably darts as well.

But when our lads dart on to the field in three days' time, there'll be a new spring in their heart, a new hope in their step and, almost certainly, new elastic in their shorts. They will know that anything's plausible.

They will know that those who said, "Momma mia, those-a Kiwi boys cianti beat-a the Azzuri" have another stink coming.

In the hours before the Slovakia game, a Radio Sport report echoed the sentiments of many when it said, "The All Whites' hopes in tonight's World Cup opener rest largely on the shoulders of the team's old heads."

Incandescent as that prose may be, we now know it was wrong. Winston's nifty nut has shown us the All Whites' hopes "rest largely on the heads of the team's young shoulders".

Can our very own Danish dazzler do it again? Will his head put us ahead against the best the world can muster? Will a yellow card or a red card - rather than a credit card - destroy a nation's hopes?

There's no way of knowing what's coming till it's gone. So we can't predict how the next two games will go. But go they will. And go we must. Hell for leather, end to end, dodging, ducking, weaving, passing, then into the penalty area and GOAL!

Last week we just saw shabbiness

Small shady deals and rorts

But now our focus is All White.

We've found some better sports.

It's fun to carp and whinge and moan

'Bout others and their greed.

Much better still has been the thrill

We've got from Winston Reid.

If politics were soccer

Our chances would be slim

But, happily, it isn't and

Full credit goes to him.

* By Wynne Matchez, Qantas Sports Journalist of the Millennium