WELLINGTON, New Zealand — It might not have been the shot heard around the world, but it was a goal that reverberated 8,000 miles away when Auckland City FC scored Tuesday to draw 1-1 with Boca Juniors in the group-play finale for both teams at the FIFA Club World Cup.
Christian Gray, a trainee teacher at Mount Roskill Intermediate School in Auckland, rose to meet the corner kick of Jerson Lagos, a barber, and headed in the equalizer in the 52nd minute as the mostly amateur team from New Zealand held Boca Juniors — the same professional club from Argentine for which the late soccer legend Diego Maradona once played — to a tie in Nashville before heading home to the other side of the planet.
Nicknamed the Navy Blues, the New Zealand club used Chattanooga as its home base and practiced at Baylor School over the past few weeks while taking part in matches in this year’s Club World Cup, which was expanded to 32 teams as a personal project pushed by Gianni Infantino — the president of FIFA, soccer’s international governing body — to cast a bigger spotlight on the event.
Auckland City lost 10-0 to Bayern Munich of Germany’s Bundesliga on June 15 in Cincinnati and 6-0 to Benfica of Portugal’s Primeira Liga last Friday in Orlando, Florida, in its first two matches. That led to questions about FIFA’s decision to allow a team of part-timers from the Oceania Football Confederation, its smallest region, to compete with the professional superstars of world soccer.
Even the New Zealand Herald, a newspaper based in Auckland, joined the critics, at one point suggesting the Navy Blues had “damaged Auckland City FC’s proud 20-year legacy” in FIFA events.