One thing people from large countries will never understand is the feeling of being a rank underdog, of being somewhat of a joke on the world stage… and then proving everyone wrong.

I’m no sports fan, I can’t even claim to have staunchly supported our All Whites until the day they made it to the world cup, but I am perfectly happy to watch re-run upon re-run of our last-minute goal against Slovakia, I’m even happy to watch reruns of the drunken fans screaming and hugging and crying is their overdramatic, middle of the night celebrations.

There’s nothing better than being part of a small country in moments like these. It makes up for all those times we watch other countries pile up gold medals in the Olympics and all those times we don’t even make it to these sporting events.

One thing you can say about New Zealand, is that we are GREAT underdogs.