Terry Maddaford: The kids are all right ... and so are the seniors

New Zealand's soccer stakes continue to rise with the mouth-watering World Cup return with Bahrain still to come.

The battling 1-1 draw Steve Cain's Young All Whites scored against Costa Rica at the Fifa Under-17 World Cup in Enugu, Nigeria, yesterday is up there with the handful of similar results claimed by New Zealand teams on the world stage in the past 10 years.

Since the breakthrough 2-1 win over Poland at the same tournament at North Harbour Stadium in 1999, the best result for a New Zealand team came at last year's inaugural Fifa Women's Under-17 tournament when the Junior Football Ferns beat Colombia 3-1 at Wellington's Westpac Stadium.

But there have been a sprinkling of draws ahead of yesterday's plucky effort in difficult conditions in Nigeria.

The men's Olympic team drew 1-1 with hosts China in Beijing last year and the New Zealand under-20 women had commendable draws with England (1-1 in Chile last year) and 0-0 with Brazil in Russia two years earlier.

Not to be left out, the All Whites, too, have had their share of decent results - their last two outings producing 0-0 draws with Bahrain (in the first leg of their crucial World Cup Asia/Oceania qualifier) and Iraq in their last game at June's Confederations Cup in South Africa.

In other noteworthy efforts, the All Whites three times led world champions Italy before succumbing 3-4 in a Confederations Cup warm-up in South Africa; they drew 2-2 with Wales (away) in 2007 after claiming a 3-1 win over Georgia and a 1-1 draw with Estonia a year earlier.

Now two national teams are on the cusp of a breakthrough.

A win for the under-17s in either of their remaining games in Nigeria against Burkina Faso (3.45am Thursday) or Turkey (7am Sunday) would see them through to post-section play - a first for a New Zealand team.

An even bigger fish is waiting to be fried at Westpac Stadium where, in front of an already sold-out full house of 35,000, the All Whites play Bahrain in the return leg of their qualifier with the winner through to the 32-team World Cup finals in South Africa.

Toss in the stunning 6-0 romp by the Phoenix on Sunday in the upset of the Hyundai A-League season and New Zealand football looks to be in fine health.

But it is not yet time to take such efforts out of perspective.

New Zealand Football bosses have made a determined effort to get things right off the pitch. There is still much to be done on it, but surely these latest efforts are a step in the right direction. And more of the same surely makes it good sense to stay with the Oceania Football Confederation rather than joining forces with Australia in Asia - at any level.

Against Costa Rica the Gordon Murie-led Young All Whites stunned their favoured opponents when, from a Josh Morrison long throw, Michael Built smashed the ball home for the lead after 17 minutes.

A blunder in the heart of the New Zealand defence when Murie and Adam Thomas were caught in a tangle allowed Joel Campbell to slide the ball home for 1-1 to complete the scoring in the 35th minute.

Earlier, Turkey beat Burkina Faso 1-0 to take the early lead in group D.