Chris Rattue: Thank Nelsen for game's revival

Ryan Nelsen is proving central to New Zealand's hopes of success. Photo / Doug Sherring

Wynton Rufer has the fancy Fifa award declaring his place in our sporting history.

Yet in terms of driving the national soccer side to places unimaginable until recently, indeed changing the course of sporting history, Ryan Nelsen would get my vote as the most important All White of all time.

Soccer has the chance of a re-birth in this country, and Nelsen is the key man for now.

As the All Whites strangled Serbia to such a degree the White Eagles were embarrassed by a flare from the stands and a lack of flair on the Austrian pitch, you had to turn again and again to the man in the number six shirt to make sense of an almost surreal victory.

Qualification and tournament games are all important, but a friendly win of this magnitude, after a draining playing, training and travel schedule, is extraordinary.

Whatever happens in the World Cup, New Zealand soccer has reached a new level, now that we can see more clearly what a batch of players and coaches have achieved in what have been mainly obscure careers around the world.

Long may it continue, and what we have learned is that there is no reason why it can't, even if the game struggles for a domestic profile.

Nelsen is so important though, as a leader, personality, organiser and defender, that Ricki Herbert must contemplate resting the captain against Slovenia on Saturday as an injury precaution, especially with the comfort of that wonderful win over Serbia under the belt.

If Rufer - Fifa's Oceania player of the last century - has been unquestioned as our finest, then it's time to at least open that up to debate.

I'm not talking sheer ability here, but impact.

Two World Cup missions dominate New Zealand soccer, the magical ride of the early '80s and now the short, sharp shock of making it to South Africa.

International soccer is all about the World Cup. Anything else is of secondary value, particularly in Oceania.

A group of remarkable men out of an excellent national league changed our soccer history 30 years ago.

Under vastly different circumstances this time, where self-made professionals have formed a band of brothers, one player - Nelsen - is the irreplaceable driving force as well as being chief spokesman and hand shaker.

Exhibit A in this Nelsen-praising column is last year's Confederations Cup in South Africa, where without the central defender the All Whites crashed in their group. Exhibit B would be the March World Cup warm-up game in Los Angeles, where a spluttering Mexico burst past New Zealand aided by two clear defensive errors.

Without Nelsen, we still generally lose at high levels. With him, we can even win.

Rufer is commonly termed our greatest player, but this reflects his achievements as a professional at the top of world club soccer.

The All Whites of 1982 got to where they did largely without Rufer, a late addition to the qualification campaign, although his brilliant long-range goal against China was a pivotal moment for the team and New Zealand sport.

Yet his presence, and he was still a teenager, didn't have that much impact come the finals in Spain. Players from the core of that team, Steve Sumner, Bobby Almond and Steve Wooddin, were far bigger contributors.

Nelsen is an entirely different matter though. He has been a mistake-free barricade through a short and sweet ride, while glaring defensive mistakes, against Bahrain, Mexico and Australia, have been made by others.

These All Whites are unlikely to have made it past Bahrain without the Blackburn central defender holding everything together, and quite frankly, they would have been no chance to beat Serbia without him.

With no disrespect to some excellent support acts, Nelsen, in both his character and ability, is giving a lot of others their best chance to shine.

Rufer, a star at Werder Bremen where his achievements were often obscured from the general Kiwi sporting public, suggested to a generation of footballers that you could climb from a park in Miramar to the top of world soccer. This is not to be underestimated.

Nelsen is more prominent however. In a new age where the English Premier League dominates much of world soccer, he is not only a regular in a decent side, but the captain.

Both men's achievements are probably under-valued in their homeland and while this is not Rufer's fault, his career in Germany went largely un-noticed here.

When it comes to the All Whites' World Cup squads, Rufer was a classy add-on. Nelsen is the heartbeat.

Only one New Zealand sportsman has topped Nelsen's impact on a national sports team, and that is Richard Hadlee.

Hadlee was a man apart, a tidy corner in a messy dressing room, a player with a magic recall of his own career, a self-obsessed personality who dragged a team as close to the mountain-top that New Zealand cricket will ever get.

This extended over a long period, whereas Nelsen - partly because of a self-imposed exile - has made a shorter but just as sweet impact, at just the right time World Cup-wise.

Individuals can make a huge difference that only becomes evident when they depart.

New Zealand may find out, should he leave our shores after the World Cup, that Richie McCaw is nigh-on irreplaceable. You have to fear for the All Blacks once McCaw goes, as the behemoths of South Africa take a grip on world rugby.

The All Blacks would fare far better without McCaw than the All Whites would without Nelsen, however.

A mark of the Nelsen influence is that Herbert could play new defenders Winston Reid and Tommy Smith and achieve a staggering win over Serbia, keeping the world number 15 team scoreless.

Time for the cotton wool then? Combinations still need working on, especially if Reid and Smith become World Cup starters. But there is a match against Chile at Nelspruit to help in that regard.

Nelsen has laughed off the idea of being rested. But he just HAS to be fit at the World Cup start line.

* Controversy rages. A constant email stream arrives at the Herald, expressing everything from frustration to outrage that this newspaper refers to the beautiful game as soccer rather than football.

This is not a matter up to writers and reporters.

The word soccer has been set as the Herald's style, to distinguish the game from other football codes.

People in high Herald places say the newspaper will not buckle.