$100<\/span><\/a> promotions like appearing across football platforms, the spotlight on the All Whites is a hopeful one.<\/p>\nThe Squad Beyond Wood<\/h3>\n
Marko Stamenic and Joe Bell anchor the midfield, both playing regular senior football in Europe. Elijah Just has been in fine form in Scotland with six goals and two assists this season. Goalkeeper Max Crocombe has been part of Millwall\u2019s Championship promotion push in England. It is the most Europe-based, most match-sharp All Whites squad of the modern era.<\/p>\n
Darren Bazeley, in charge since 2023, has the group playing with structure and intent. Group G will test that structure to the limit, but two huge performances against Iran and Egypt will have New Zealand living their own American dream.<\/p>\n
New Zealand World Cup 2026: The Bigger Picture<\/h3>\n
This is New Zealand\u2019s third-ever World Cup appearance, after 1982 and 2010. They are still the only side in World Cup history to finish a tournament unbeaten without advancing from the group stage, with three draws in South Africa sixteen years ago. New Zealand\u2019s World Cup 2026 campaign will not be judged on repeating that exact feat. A moment of magic from their talisman, Chris Wood, is well within their grasp to help them exceed all expectations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Zealand World Cup 2026 preparations have survived the latest injury scare on captain Chris Wood, who is back in the Nottingham Forest starting XI after surviving an awful tackle in the Europa League quarter-final against Porto last week. Seven weeks out from the opening group game in Los Angeles, Darren Bazeley\u2019s All Whites face […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4106,"featured_media":669042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":true,"sfio_embed_code":"<\/smartframe-embed>","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[161,2132],"tags":[798,628,1462,446,2183],"class_list":["post-669041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-football","category-world-cup","tag-2026-world-cup","tag-belgium","tag-chris-wood","tag-egypt","tag-iran"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669041"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":669498,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669041\/revisions\/669498"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}