All Whites defender Tommy Smith earned his last cap in 2024. This is why he looks set to go to the 2026 FIFA World Cup

Tuesday, 12 May 2026

ANALYSIS: When All Whites coach Darren Bazeley reveals his FIFA World Cup squad on Thursday, there is set to be one player included who stands apart from the others.

An outfielder who hasn't played a single minute in the team's last 17 matches.

But someone Bazeley clearly believes still has a big role to play off the field.

It is expected veteran centre back Tommy Smith will be one of the coach’s chosen 26 for the World Cup, after being in 13 of his 15 squads to date and finishing the 2025-26 season fit and active.

But the 36-year-old’s anticipated inclusion will divide opinion between those who feel there is room to pick someone for their intangible qualities and those who feel it should consist of the country's 26 best footballers.

Bazeley has made the same case for including Smith going back to December 2024, when the emergence of Tyler Bindon and Finn Surman alongside Michael Boxall and Nando Pijnaker had made it clear his days of fighting for a starting spot were over.

'He's a cultural architect. He's a connector. He's so good with the younger players,' Bazeley told Stuff at the time. “I think it wouldn't be until you took him out of the environment that you feel that something's maybe missing.

“I think he has quite a big impact on some players' performance and he definitely impacts the environment.'

Only captain Chris Wood and Wynton Rufer have played more professional club matches than Smith among New Zealanders and only Wood, Kosta Barbarouses and Michael Boxall have more All Whites caps than his 56 among active players.

He played a key role for Auckland FC as they won A-League Men’s Premiers’ Plate last season, but was granted a release to return home to England, saying of his wife and children: “The time has come for us as a family to settle, and Ipswich is where we see that happening”.

Back in East Anglia, Smith continued his playing career with Braintree Town, who finished 23rd out of 24 teams in the fifth-tier National League and were relegated to the sixth-tier National League South as a result.

He only appeared in 17 of The Iron’s 46 matches, twice missing large stretches due to injury, but the sight of him in playing at a low level, far removed from where he was in his prime, with the likes of Bill Tuiloma, George Stanger and Isaac Hughes impressing at centre back in superior leagues, is why his pending selection warrants scrutiny.

Those within the All Whites’ camp have praised Smith’s selflessness in helping Pijnaker, Bindon and Surman effectively take his place in the team.

That adjective wouldn’t have been used to describe him in 2014 and 2016 when his frustrations with NZ Football led to him twice making himself unavailable.

He would be the 23rd outfielder picked and selflessness and a team-first attitude is what you want from that position, in the one squad where it’s all about the here and now, not the future.

When England were on their way to the European Championship final in 2021, one of their assistants called unused centre back Conor Coady the “player of the tournament so far” for how he adopted a similar attitude and strengthened the team.

It’s by no means a perfect comparison – Coady might have been down the depth chart, but he was still an English Premier League starter – but it’s an apt one.

A common counter-argument is that Smith could still draw on his experience and provide leadership as a member of the coaching staff.

What that ignores is that there is a line you cross when you go from having a number on the back of your shirt to having a monogram on the front of your jacket.

Rory Fallon will tell you as much – as someone who finished his All Whites career playing a very similar role to the one Smith does now.

The 24-cap striker was at English seventh-tier club Dorchester Town when Anthony Hudson called him up for the first time in over a year for the World Cup qualifying playoff against Peru in 2017.

“I bring the fun,” was how he put it then – a much-needed counterpoint to Hudson’s all-business approach.

Two years later, he was back assisting Danny Hay and by his own admission, he “wasn’t ready for it,” so soon after being one of the boys: “A lot of those lads, when I was coaching, were still my mates, so it was very difficult”.

It is understood Bazeley believes it would be the same right now with Smith and that moving him from the playing group to the coaching staff would change things for the worse.

The debate as to whether someone more deserving has missed out at Smith’s expense can’t really be had until Thursday when the squad is confirmed, but it’s easy to see how the dominoes might fall.

Selections since the All Whites booked their World Cup spot point to 23 players who are locked in and whose absence would be an even greater shock than Smith's.

Give spot No 24 to him and spot No 25 to the third goalkeeper and that leaves spot No 26, likely to be used on a midfielder, either Lachlan Bayliss or Owen Parker-Price.

Whoever is chosen would be a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency option, unlikely to see much action, so there would be nothing lost including Smith ahead of whoever isn’t.

The same goes with considering an extra forward. There are 10 options to play on the left, the right or up top within the 23 probables. An 11th isn’t needed.

The question looks to be whether there is a more deserving defender – a fifth-choice centre back or a third-choice right back, notwithstanding the fact that first-choice right back Tim Payne would likely be the actual fifth choice in the middle if necessary.

The option who ticks both boxes is Bill Tuiloma.

His last 10 All Whites appearances have come at right back, but since joining the Wellington Phoenix in January, he has been playing centre back, the position where he made his previous 13 appearances – 12 of them under former coach Hay.

Of those who could miss out on World Cup selection at Smith’s expense, he is the only one who could feel hard done by. Leaving out an uncapped centre back such as Hughes or Stanger just wouldn’t be the same.

At the same time, Tuiloma’s mixed performances in his five All Whites outings in 2025 hardly made the case for a bigger role. His club career had also stalled before he came back home, to the point where he had played in just 12 of Charlotte FC’s last 87 Major League Soccer fixtures.

All signs point towards Bazeley being content with centre back Bindon as the emergency option behind Payne and Callan Elliot on the right.

If the All Whites find themselves in desperate need of a sixth-choice centre back or a third-choice right back next month, that is when selecting Smith could come back to bite them.

Most likely they will be just fine.