All Whites coach Anthony Hudson says his team will play without fear in the opening game of the FIFA Confederations Cup.
All Whites Dane Ingham up against Belarus's Pavel Savitski. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
The side play the opening match of the tournament against hosts Russia who are ranked 63rd early tomorrow morning.
The All Whites will be hoping to make a good impression in their first game after loosing to warm up matches against Northern Ireland and Belarus.
Anthony Hudson said he's optimistic about their chances.
"We can't wait for this moment., we need to have absolutely no fear of this tournament or the teams that we are coming up against. We want to beat these teams and we are going to set out to do that."
"We just want to put in a performance that is going to do ourselves proud, I am sure we will. We want to savour every single moment and make sure that when we walk away from the stadium tomorrow night we have no regrets," Hudson said.
He said the team knows what they have to do to upset Russia.
"We need to have belief, we need to have no fear -there will be around 60,000 home supporters there. Outside of our little group, in the whole world no one expects us to do anything at this tournament.
"We are ranked much lower than Russia, but we have a huge amount of belief that we can pull something off if we fight for each other," Hudson said.
New Zealand have only ever played Russia once before in the 1982 World Cup, Russia won 3-0.
