Serious sporting minds may disagree, but I have always felt great sporting moments are felt in the heart, not the head; hence my greatest New Zealand sporting moment was the All Whites' journey to the 1982 World Cup Finals.
I watched every minute of that extraordinary campaign, even before that, when they came to Dunedin and played a Southern region team in 1980.
I sat on the sunny side of the Cale that afternoon, where you could hear the players, and I clearly heard captain Steve Sumner when he turned despairingly to his midfield and snarled, this is fooken roobish.
But it wasn't fooken roobish when they held out China after 15 elimination games to qualify for Spain.
I sat up all night in Christchurch watching with my father-in-law, who, while almost mute in outrage that the whole team wasn't from Canterbury, gradually joined my cheering as the clock ticked down.
I went into central Christchurch that morning to talk to people about the game, the achievement, to hug strangers.
I have never felt like that after a sporting event.
But this was Christchurch, a city still in Griz Wylie's icy grip.
Nobody was talking about the All Whites.
Spain was expected to be an anti-climax, but it wasn't.
Scotland, traditionally wretched World Cup performers, were only up 3-2 at one stage, the magnificent Steve Woodin half-raising his arm in shy apology after scoring.
Not for Woodin the 50m cartwheel, an Olympic triple jump and two raised fists, he just scored goals.
The used-car salesman masquerading as Tommy Docherty came out to New Zealand during the campaign and ran his eye over Woodin.
He's lazy, said Docherty, but he does know how to play.
Now the All Whites are just one game away from a second time in the World Cup; 32 days out from the decider in Wellington, I am full of red-eyed fervour again.
And it's clear after Sunday's game, we need to shore up the defence, we need more than Ryan Nelson.
I think it was Oscar Wilde who said the World Cup in 2010 will be all about the look of the player, and defence is all about the look.
Nelsen looks like a character in Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels.
But we need one more.
Coincidentally, I received a photo last week from an old friend in Brighton, a Chelsea fan since birth, who lived here in the 1990s and once played in a band with Shayne Carter.
We often argued who was the better team, the 1982 All Whites or her beloved Chelsea.
The photo showed her daughter Phoebe, 10 years old, standing in the strip of Queens Park, cradling a runners-up medal for the Brighton seven-a-side championship.
The winning teams' players smacked Phoebe in the face and winded her to tears, wrote her mum - it was a Terry Butcher moment when she got up and played on.
Does Phoebe have the look? Oh yes.
There is a steely glacial stare radiating from this photo, a stare that says, mess with me and I'll cut your legs off at the hip.
That's precisely how she plays, said her mum: the other kids all wanted to be strikers, Phoebe wanted to defend.
And this is the thing - Phoebe has a New Zealand father.
She could be whisked into the All Whites with the stroke of a pen.
The eyes of the world would be glazed at the sight of this mere lass staving off Ronaldo and Rooney, the marketing potential would be beyond numbers.
Her mother says Phoebe reminds her of John Terry.
She has the yell, the open shouty-mouth at the sight of a wide cross, and the aggressive pout.
I imagine Bahrain attackers bearing down on her with dreams of World Cup glory in their bonus-battered brains.
No contest.
At the back for New Zealand, Ryan Nelsen and Phoebe Allison.
It sounds absolutely perfect.
It looks even better.
