New Zealand footballers earn opening victory

The New Zealand men’s footballers came out on top of a see-sawing tussle with Guinea to win their opening match 2-1 in Nice.

Both teams found plenty of space and there was a torrent of shots at goal. New Zealand goalie Alex Paulsen was kept busy throughout.

The first half was an action-packed affair in which Guinea had 10 shots and New Zealand seven.

Despite several strong Guinea attacks, often led by Amadou Diallo, Paulsen did well to keep a clean sheet until the interval. The agile Paulsen made several sharp saves, including two in the closing minutes of the half.

New Zealand captain Matt Garbett missed a golden chance to put his team in the lead in the 23rd minute when he fired a penalty kick wide to the left. Sam Sutton had been awarded the penalty when he was brought down in the box by Guinea goalie Soumaila Sylla.

Garbett bounced back to make amends just two minutes later when he latched on to a poor clearing kick by Sylla and scored.

New Zealand received a critical left-off in the 61st minute when a goal to Guinea was ruled out after a VAR review which detected an off-side infringement in the build-up. Guinea’s Aliou Balde had come in from the right and taken advantage of a stumble by defender Boxall to slam the ball past Paulsen.

Undeterred, Guinea kept pressing and in the 72nd minute the ever-dangerous Amadou Diaware slammed a long-range shot from the right, finding the New Zealand defenders flat-footed. Paulsen could only watch the ball fly into the net.

The match swung again five minutes later when Ben Waine took advantage of some fine build-up work to slot a goal. 2-1 to New Zealand.

Guinea remained dangerous right to the end, but New Zealand held on for a hard-earned first-up victory.

This is only New Zealand's second-ever win in Olympic men's football.

Afterwards captain Garbett paid tribute to his team's character in fighting until the last minute to earn victory.

New Zealand next play the United States in Marseille on Sunday morning (NZ time).

Olympic men’s football is restricted to players aged under 23, but teams are each allowed to field three older players. New Zealand’s three overage players are Joe Bell, Michael Boxall and Sarpeet Singh.