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Halfway there: The All Whites thank the crowd after their 0-0 draw against Bahrain in the first leg in Manama - Source: Photosport -
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There's something immense brewing in the Capital this weekend. For once, it's not a Southerly blast, and as Saturday night draws nearer it may well yet envelop the whole nation.
Ironically enough, while the All Blacks are playing at a football stadium in Rome, it's the All Whites - playing at a rugby stadium in Wellington - who will have a crowd of four million behind them.
It seems inconceivable that an All Blacks Test would be overshadowed by a football game played on the same night. But we live in strange and exciting times.
New Zealand's identity is stamped with a sport that makes legends of ordinary blokes with extraordinary heart and toughness. Football, with its prima donnas and cynical Hollywood acts, will always be regarded with deep suspicion.
A justified wave of righteous indignation - aimed first at Chelsea striker Didier Drogba for his on-pitch histrionics against Manchester United, then at Liverpool forward David Ngog's for his disgraceful, but ultimately match-saving, dive - served as a reminder this past week.
Nor does it help the game's popularity that New Zealanders are naturally wary of public bouts of singing, except when prompted by the PA system - and even then, the end product treads a fine lyrical line between singing and shouting.
But none of that matters a jot this weekend. Prejudices will be laid down; countless renditions of the irrepressible Miles Davis' "One Shot For Glory" will be started up.
No rugby-loving sports fan - a group in which I include myself, excepting that I say "football" rather than "soccer", preferring to leave the latter (pronounced "saa-kerr") to the Americans - could deny that the biggest sporting event of the weekend, and possibly the year, will take place at the Cake Tin.
Nor could any man deny the remarkable achievement that our heretofore unheralded All Whites are on the verge of.
No team takes World Cup qualification for granted; not even the big guns. Just ask Diego Maradona, whose Argentinean team's rocky road to qualification this year is proof of that.
Our poor cousins across the ditch have only been to two World Cups. The Dutch were notable absentees in 2002. England may have breezed through qualifying this time, but eight years ago they needed a last-gasp David Beckham free kick to go through. They didn't make it to USA '94.
The opportunity to play at a World Cup is priceless, and for the All Whites, it will never again be as gilt-edged as it is this time around.
Once FIFA cottons on to their facile path to qualification, it will be blocked; meaning they'll probably face the tougher proposition of playing more qualifying matches in Asia next time around.
What's more, there is a real sense that Bahrain is there for the taking. They may be faster and more skilful - and occasionally ran rings around the All Whites in Manama - but the way they have conducted their preparation betrays a belief that all they have to do is turn up to win.
Declining a chance to acclimatise to local conditions by training in balmy Australia for most of the week was bizarre enough; then came the comical oversight of booking themselves a training ground for Thursday night without bothering to check whether it had floodlights or not. Oh dear.
The Bahranis have no doubt been briefed on the vagaries of Wellington's weather, but until they round a street corner and meet it face to face for the first time, they'll have no idea what they're in for.
All Whites skipper Ryan Nelsen was happy to admit his team has been doing a bit of rain dancing over the week, in the hope of coercing the weather gods into returning the favour dealt to Bahrain by way of sweltering heat in the first leg.
And if they were still under any illusions that the return leg would be easy, those thoughts could blow swiftly away with the biting, sleety Southerly as soon as they enter Westpac Stadium - a ground which, it must be said, has sat almost empty throughout the Air New Zealand Cup season.
Come Saturday night, it will be a seething cauldron, the likes of which have never been seen at a football game in this country; and seldom at a rugby game either.
This is the All Whites' one shot for glory, after all. And there's not a man alive in New Zealand - from keen football fan to regular soccer-hater - who won't be urging them on to take it.
