‘I’m addicted’: All Whites analyst Logan Hughes knows their World Cup rivals inside out
Wednesday, 10 June 2026
All Whites analyst Logan Hughes has spent the past six months learning everything there is to know about their three World Cup group stage opponents.
New Zealand face Iran in Los Angeles and Egypt and Belgium in Vancouver over the next two weeks.
Hughes first worked as an analyst for the Wellington Phoenix, then for Lincoln City in England, before joining the All Whites in 2024.
Once the FIFA World Cup draw was made at the start of December, with the All Whites the last team to learn their fate, one of their staffers sprang into action before anyone else.
Head analyst Logan Hughes was sat watching on his laptop in a café. The wait had seemed indeterminable. Then suddenly all was clear.
Group G. Iran in Los Angeles. Egypt and Belgium in Vancouver.
Three teams the 25-year-old has spent the past six months getting to know inside and out, so there will hopefully be no surprises – and plenty of insights – when the action begins on Monday (1pm Tuesday NZ time).
“Straight away I was into it,“ Hughes told Stuff at New Zealand Football's Albany office, shortly before the team set out for North America. “Not because I needed to. Because I wanted to do. Straight away I was looking at Iran, Egypt, Belgium.
“I'm addicted. [Watching football] is my life. I love it. I love my job. So of course I wanted to dive into all that stuff straight away when the draw came out.”
Hughes' journey to the World Cup began at Wembley. Not Wembley Stadium, the iconic London venue that is home to England's national teams and hosts the FA Cup final each May. Wembley Park in Whanganui, where almost all the town's football is played – the heart of a local community he still keeps in touch with whenever he’s home.
He was a teenager when he first realised there was more to football than simply playing it. “Everyone else would play [the video game] FIFA against each other, right? I was the first to play manager mode. I was addicted to manager mode and I still am. I played a little bit of Football Manager [another game] when I had the time.
“When I was 14 years old I took over from my dad coaching my younger brother's team' – the Wolverines. 'I got involved from a young age, and I just loved it. It just feels so natural to me to be in that leadership role and to pass on guidance to younger players, and help them improve, and grow, and flourish.”
After finishing high school, Hughes went to Dunedin to study a sport management degree, but after one semester, he found his calling when the Wellington Phoenix advertised an unpaid analyst internship. Interviewed by Giancarlo Italiano, then coach Ufuk Talay's head analyst, he got the role, then made a life-changing decision.
“I had to call up my dad and say, look, I know you've just forked out a lot to get me to university in the first place. Six months in, I want to leave and go to Wellington for an unpaid job. What do you think?
“And he totally said 'if you're going to do it, don't half-arse it, do it'. It was almost emulating [Matthew] McConaughey [who has told a similar story about quitting his law studies to pursue acting].”
“That gave me full confidence and I made the decision. It was probably the first grown-up decision I've made in my life, where I said Dunedin was nice, it was okay, but this could turn into something else, and this is my real passion, right?“
Hughes said his time as a Phoenix intern was “the making of” him. He worked part-time jobs washing dishes at a café and delivering pizzas while sleeping on a mattress on a mate's floor, but “it didn't feel hard. In fact, it was some of the funnest times of my life”.
“I was learning so much of the game through Chief and Uffie. They were really the foundation of my tactical learning of football. They taught me how to look at football, not from a fan's point of view or at the pub point of view, but how to really analytically break it down.”
Hughes spent four seasons at the Phoenix, the last two of them as the head analyst, then moved to England to take on that role at third-tier club Lincoln City.
Once the All Whites role came his way in early 2024, he left The Imps after one season, but he was still following closely as they won promotion to the second-tier Championship during the season just gone.
Hughes' willingness to move to England to further his career aged just 22 stood out to Bazeley. “I felt that was pretty brave,” he said. “He's knowledgable. His work rate and his morals are really high. He just wants to be perfect and do the best job he can.
“He's got a massive love of football. He doesn't really do anything other than analyse football. I think he's got a bright future. He probably will end up coaching. We're lucky to have somebody like him that's helping us right now. He's a good lad and I think he'll go places.”
Hughes came into the All Whites set-up ahead of the Oceania Nations Cup in Vanuatu two years ago and has thrived in an environment where Bazeley has built a shared leadership model, encouraging everyone to have their say. As well as supporting the coaching staff, he has found a playing group who, for the most part, have come through in an age where reviewing video is part and parcel of their job.
“We've got a very, very critical thinking group within the All Whites, which is awesome to see, and it makes my job really fun,” Hughes said. “They challenge me at halftime, challenge me during games, but that's why I'm there. I don't want to be an analyst in the background who just does all the computer work – I want to be involved in the decision making and helping them – through the coaches, of course.”
Hughes works closely with assistant coach Tony Readings, who joins him and fellow analyst Sam Casey-Popovich – another Phoenix alumnus – in the stands for the first halves of matches for a bird's eye view, before heading to the bench alongside Bazeley and Simon Elliott after the break.
“Sam will film the games,” Hughes said of their approach. “I'll be live coding. I'll have the video feed coming into my laptop, sending clips down to the bench, getting clips ready for halftime. Tony does that as well. He's got the radio, so we're talking to the bench, passing communications on, whether that's about open play or helping [goalkeeper coach Paul Gothard] on set pieces.”
Hughes' gameday role starts long before kickoff. Setting up the dressing room and ensuring all the intel players and coaches need is present is one part of it. The biggest part is digesting the opposition team list when it lands, somewhere between an hour and 90 minutes before kickoff.
When the All Whites played Chile in March, his intuition as to what one particular selection meant for Chile's tactical approach led to the All Whites' changing their pressing shape at short notice, after Bazeley backed his analysis of the situation.
“I'm going back up the elevator five minutes before kickoff and I'm very nervous, because the last thing you want to do is give the boys mixed messages or mess with their heads before the game,“ Hughes said.
“Chile played the way we predicted and our pressing shape was quite effective before the red card [that left Chile with 10 men for the final hour of a match the All Whites won 4-1] so it was a great outcome for me personally.
“Well done to Baze for being the one who pushed the button on it and taking the risk and trusting in me and well done to the players on executing that pressing plan.
“It was a really cool moment – a moment where previously, because I was young and inexperienced, I might have held my tongue, but it was a good growing moment for me to trust my gut and trust my football knowledge.”
As Bazeley put it: “It gave the players enough information to go out and not have to solve the problem on the pitch straight away, which was good“.
Whether a similar scenario will arise at the World Cup remains to be seen, but there's no doubting that thanks to Hughes, the All Whites will know everything there is to know about Iran, Egypt and Belgium as they head into the three biggest matches they've had since their last World Cup appearance in 2010.
He remembers staying up late as a young boy to watch those matches. Now he's in the United States, living “a dream come true“.
“This is just so exciting for me. But I need people around me to remind me sometimes. It's motivating to get up in the morning and say you're going to a World Cup, but you forget when you're in the thick of it – you're working hard every day, looking for all the one per centers.
“Then I might call a family member or a friend, and they go, 'You know, you're going to the World Cup. Remember to smile', and I go, 'Yeah, you're right. I need to enjoy it'.
“So my goal for this tournament is to enjoy the process, and hopefully, whatever the outcome, grow as an analyst and help the team perform the best they can on the pitch.”
All Whites – 2026 FIFA World Cup
Squad
GK: Max Crocombe, Alex Paulsen, Michael Woud; DF: Callan Elliot, Tim Payne; Tyler Bindon, Michael Boxall, Nando Pijnaker, Tommy Smith, Finn Surman; Liberato Cacace, Francis de Vries; MF: Lachlan Bayliss, Joe Bell, Matt Garbett, Eli Just, Ben Old, Alex Rufer, Sarpreet Singh, Marko Stamenić, Ryan Thomas; FW: Kosta Barbarouses, Callum McCowatt, Jesse Randall, Ben Waine, Chris Wood
Fixtures/results (NZ time)
Friendlies
World Cup group G
June 16, 1pm: v Iran; SoFi Stadium, Los Angeles, California
June 22, 1pm: v Egypt; BC Place, Vancouver
June 27, 3pm: v Belgium, BC Place