All Whites left hurting as shot at first FIFA World Cup win slips away after Egypt comeback
Monday, 22 June 2026
The All Whites led Egypt for 43 minutes, but ultimately suffered a 3-1 defeat in their second FIFA World Cup match.
Finn Surman put New Zealand ahead with a 15th-minute header from a corner.
But Mostafa Zico, Mohamed Salah and Trézéguet all scored in the second half for Egypt.
Salah’s go-ahead goal came seconds after a potential foul call went against Ben Old at the other end of the pitch.
At BC Place, Vancouver: Egypt 3 (Mostafa Zico 58’, Mo Salah 67’, Trézéguet 82’) All Whites 1 (Finn Surman 15’). HT: 0-1
The All Whites’ let a golden opportunity for a first FIFA World Cup win slip for the second match in a row as they lost 3-1 to Egypt at BC Place in Vancouver on a night where they were left fuming about a controversial call in a crucial moment.
Ben Old was writhing on the ground in pain, feeling he had been “clearly fouled” by Yasser Ibrahim as he looked to attack up the left, but didn’t get the whistle he was after from referee Omar Al-Ali, before Egypt sped down the other end and took the lead through captain Mo Salah in the 67th minute.
Finn Surman’s 15th-minute header at a Tim Payne corner had been cancelled out when Mostafa Zico got between those two at the other end to head home himself in the 58th minute, a shot goalkeeper Max Crocombe was disappointed not to have kept out.
Egyptian substitute Trézéguet then made it 3-1 with a diving near-post header at a corner in the 82nd – a goal that could yet be crucial if goal difference has a say in whether either of these teams makes it through to the knockout stage.
On the night, it meant Egypt and the tens of thousands of fans they had in the 52,497-strong crowd were in raptures come the final whistle, with two staff members doing a lap of honour waving their flag to mark their first World Cup win – a result that had been 92 years in the making.
Meanwhile, the All Whites’ 44-year wait went on, as they relinquished a World Cup lead for the third time in the space of a week.
They dropped from the top of group G at the start of the day – when all four teams had a single point – to the bottom at the end of it and now need to beat world No 10 Belgium in their final group match at the same venue on Friday night (3pm Saturday NZ time) to have any chance of advancing.
Coach Darren Bazeley “thought it was a foul” on Old, both in the moment and once he had watched it back. The winger-slash-fullback’s pants were torn and left covered in blood when Ibrahim stepped on his crotch after he went to ground and he had to wait for a new pair to be fetched from the dressing room after the goal before returning to the field.
Bazeley said: “[The goal] should have been stopped. These are moments in games that hurt. We could still defend it better. I’m not blaming it all on that, but it’s a World Cup and we need things to go our way and we didn’t get something to go our way today”.
The All Whites came out in the first half and raised the bar from where they left it in their opening 2-2 draw with Iran in Los Angeles and were well worthy of their 1-0 lead at halftime – the first time they have ever gone into the changing room in front at a World Cup.
But they failed to match Egypt when they came out for the second half and lifted their game to another level, putting the All Whites under pressure relentlessly in the lead-up to Zico’s equaliser just before the hour mark.
The All Whites had chances to double their lead – most notably when Callum McCowatt forced Egyptian goalkeeper Mostafa Shobeir to parry away a hooked shot from an acute angle on the left in the first half, then when he forced him to make a reaction save with a glancing header from right in front at the end of a well-timed run to meet a Marko Stamenić pass in the second.
They were left to rue not taking them just as they were left to rue not growing their advantage against Iran at SoFi Stadium six days earlier.
“It's really frustrating,” Old said afterwards, having played the last 24 minutes plus stoppage time off the bench. “Even more frustrating because we had such a good first-half performance. I thought that was one of our greatest performances against a top team. It's frustrating, but football is a 90-minute game.”
The sight of Egypt celebrating a historic result when New Zealand were poised to do so themselves just over half an hour earlier was a cruel sting in the tail for Bazeley and his men, who enjoyed stronger fan support than they received in Los Angeles, with a few thousand marching through the streets of Vancouver pre-game.
“Everybody's very down and frustrated,” Bazeley said. “When you see a team celebrating like that on the pitch, fair play, but that could have been us. We could have been in that moment with the flags and the fans and everything. It hurts.”
“We’re winning 1-0. Can we win the game 1-0? Then we're celebrating on the pitch, we've got our first win at World Cup, we’re potentially in the second round.
“That’s two games in a row now where we’ve been a goal up – 1-0, 2-1 against Iran, 1-0 today – and had chances. We needed to take a second chance. We needed to get that two-goal buffer, because, obviously, when you’re in a game and there’s only one goal in it, anything can happen.
“There’s lots of learnings for us, but right now it hurts quite bad.”
Bazeley now has five days to get his men up to face a Belgian side that will also be playing for their World Cup fate, after drawing 0-0 with Iran in a match where they were reduced to 10 men in Los Angeles earlier on Sunday.