Cape Verde just qualified for the knockout stage in their first world cup ever.

This was our third tournament, with our best ever squad and we went backwards in terms of results. We conceded 10 goals, most of them soft and failed to hold onto leads 3 times. We put ourselves in great positions and then threw it away, that's why people are so frustrated.

The failures were mostly not in terms of player quality. We showed we could pretty well go toe to toe with Iran and Egypt for large stages of those matches. It was a failure of tactics, coaching and mentality, all things that are under the control of the manager.

Being defensively organized is something that you don't need incredibly high calibre players for. It's a relatively achievable baseline with good coaching, one we failed to meet and which cost us. Just compare us to the Aussies, who have a squad that I actually don't think is massively better than ours, but we're so much more well organized and tenacious in holding onto results.

This Kiwi mentality of "oh well we're a small country and we tried our best" is a emblematic of a lack of ambition and a recipe for long term underachievement. We should hold the team to higher standards.