Iraq vs. New Zealand Preview

Bora Milutinovic believes his Iraq side still have a good chance of progressing to the Confederations Cup semi-finals.

The Asian champions are currently third in Group A with one point and face a crunch final match against already eliminated New Zealand in Johannesburg tomorrow.

Spain, on six points, have already qualified from the group and they face South Africa, who have four, in Bloemfontein, with the hosts knowing defeat coupled by a good win for the Iraqis will see them eliminated.

Bafana Bafana have a better goal difference than Iraq - plus two to minus one - but Milutinovic is confident his side can still get through.

"I'm very happy with the way things are," he said after their 1-0 loss to the Spaniards. "With the result against Spain we now have a chance of going through to the next round, depending on how other games go.

"I'm going to enjoy this result for a long time."

That defeat came after his side held the home nation to a surprise goalless draw in the opening game and the Serbian coach was delighted with his team's performance against the European champions.

He said: "I think our organisation was just perfect because we didn't want to lose 5-0 to Spain. That wouldn't have been very clever of us. After all, what's the point of trying to create more chances if you end up losing 4-0?

"So I am very, very happy with the defeat, I am not only happy I am delighted. I was very happy with the way my team played.

"We played very intelligently. We are still in the competition. In the first game it is important not to lose, in the second game it is important to get the best possible result and we did that."

New Zealand coach Ricki Herbert is already looking back at what his side has learnt from the tournament.

The All Whites were eliminated on Wednesday night after they followed their 5-0 loss to Spain with a 2-0 defeat to the hosts.

It left the Oceania champions, who are playing in their third Confederations Cup, still searching for their first ever point in the competition.

And Herbert is keen to rectify that record before they leave South Africa.

He said: "I was disappointed with the way we played against South Africa. Too many players did not come to the party and a few struggled to get going.

"I think we could have done a lot better. It (not getting a point in the tournament) is a little bit of a burden on our shoulders and hopefully we can knock that statistic off when we come up against Iraq.

"We will go all out to get it on Saturday."