New Zealand Football dropped the fixture I have been quietly begging for since the World Cup ended, and I almost missed it because it landed on a Friday news dump. The All Whites are going to Japan. On 1 and 5 October they play the Kirin Cup, a proper little invitational tournament run by the Japanese FA since 1978, and the other three names in the pot are hosts Japan (ranked 17 in the world), Ecuador (25) and Panama (44). We open against Panama at Yokohama International Stadium on Thursday 1 October, and depending on how that goes we either play for the trophy or the third-place game at Tokyo’s National Stadium on Monday 5 October.

Read that list again. Every single team in this tournament was at the World Cup. Three of the four sit inside the top 50. This is not a made-for-television cash friendly against somebody’s B team. This is New Zealand walking into a building full of sides that have played real football under real pressure this year, and saying, right, test us. As a hincha who grew up on Chilean football, where a friendly against Argentina or Brazil was treated like a state occasion, I cannot tell you how much I have wanted us to schedule fixtures like this instead of hiding from them.

Why Panama first is the smartest possible draw

Panama are the perfect opponent to start with, and I mean that as the highest compliment. They are not a glamour name, so nobody at home will oversell it, but they are quick, physical, streetwise and they know how to make a game ugly when they need to. That is the CONCACAF school: they will not give you a comfortable ninety minutes, and comfortable is exactly what got us in trouble in North America. If we beat Panama, we most likely get Japan or Ecuador for the final on 5 October, and that is where it gets delicious. Japan away, in Tokyo, in a full stadium, is about as hard as a non-competitive fixture gets on this planet. Ecuador would be a CONMEBOL side with that South American nastiness I know so well. Either way, we come home having actually learned something.

Darren Bazeley said the tournament gives his group the chance to keep challenging themselves against strong, highly ranked sides that all competed at the World Cup. I usually roll my eyes at coach-speak, but here he is just telling the truth. This is the level. If you want to close the gap between Oceania qualifying and a World Cup group where you are the smallest fish, you do it in rooms like this one, not against rank 138.

Which brings me, unfortunately, to November

Because here is the thing that keeps nagging at me. In November the All Whites come home for two matches against India, ranked 138 in the world, at Go Media Stadium in Auckland and then the first football match at Christchurch’s new One NZ Stadium. I love that we are opening Te Kaha with the national team, I really do, and I understand the business logic of a home double-header that will sell tickets. But India is precisely the soft opponent that flatters us and teaches us nothing, and we already saw at the World Cup what happens when a squad has been fed a diet of games it is expected to win. You look organised until somebody good turns up the heat, and then the cracks show.

So the Kirin Cup matters more, not less, because of what follows it. October is where Bazeley finds out who can actually handle a Japan or an Ecuador. November is where we bank confidence and open a beautiful new stadium. Both can be true. I just do not want us to walk out of Christchurch in November feeling great and mistake it for progress, when the honest scoreboard was written in Yokohama and Tokyo a month earlier.

How to watch from the bottom of the world

Now the annoying part for those of us on this side of the planet. Kick-off times have not been confirmed yet, and neither has a New Zealand broadcaster, so I cannot give you the exact NZT slot to set your alarm for. What I can tell you is the maths: by early October we are on daylight time, so New Zealand is four hours ahead of Japan. An evening kick-off in Yokohama, say around 7pm to 7:30pm local, would land somewhere near 11pm to 11:30pm here on the night of Thursday 1 October. Civilised, honestly, by All Whites standards. No 1am alarm, no dawn suffering. Just a late night on the couch.

I will update this once the times and the broadcast deal are locked in, because knowing New Zealand Football it will be announced quietly and half of us will find out the morning after. Until then, mark 1 and 5 October, keep the evenings loose, and let yourself be a little bit excited. We asked for hard games. We got three of the toughest available. From the fondo del mundo, that is the best news the All Whites have given me since the confetti got swept up in July.