‘Challenge’ for All Whites as their FIFA World Cup campaign begins in a Los Angeles colosseum
Monday, 15 June 2026
The All Whites begin their 2026 FIFA World Cup campaign on Monday night in Los Angeles (1pm Tuesday NZ time).
They will play Iran in their first group G match at SoFi Stadium, an NFL venue that holds 70,000 fans.
Captain Chris Wood said the “occasion” would be the biggest thing his team would have to deal with.
Coach Darren Bazeley said the “challenge” for his players would be “to just go and perform”.
When you step inside SoFi Stadium, as Stuff did for the first time on Sunday in Los Angeles, only one comparison comes to mind.
With its towering, steep stands it is incredibly reminiscent of an Ancient Roman colosseum – with a 21st century spin.
One that is set to be packed with many more fans than the world No 85 All Whites usually play in front of, when their first FIFA World Cup campaign in 16 years begins at 6pm on Monday night local time (1pm Tuesday NZ time) with a match against world No 20 Iran.
Even if the crowd falls short of the stadium’s listed capacity of 70,492, it will make for quite the atmosphere.
In ‘Tehrangeles,’ as LA is sometimes known, due to its large Iranian population, more people in the crowd will be Iranian than Kiwi, though there is a question in the air as to how many of the Iranians will back a team some see as representing a regime they don’t support.
Those distinctions will matter little to the All Whites.
At the pre-match press conference at the stadium on Sunday afternoon (Monday NZ time) captain Chris Wood identified “the occasion” as the biggest thing his team will have to deal with.
That process will start when they emerge to warm up 45 minutes before kickoff, perhaps even around an hour before then, when they first arrive at the venue.
They opted against having a walk through the day before, as is provided for in the tournament regulations, due to their schedule, which included a bus drive north from San Diego.
Wood and centre back Tommy Smith – who almost certainly won’t be taking the field – are the only All Whites to have played in a World Cup before, in South Africa in 2010, the last time the team qualified. They were only 18 and 20 then; now they’re grown men with families.
“Until you play on the big stage, a big World Cup game, you don't really know what it's like,” Wood said. “That'll be the big thing – how the boys can overcome that and still apply their footballing ability and show the world what we can actually do as individuals and as a team.
“I think we'll be focusing on just calming the boys, keeping them ready and keeping them positive.”
From the moment they began training as a full team in Florida on May 29 – two-and-a-half weeks ago – the All Whites have appeared at ease, even when they suffered a 4-0 loss to Haiti in their first warm-up match – their heaviest defeat in nine years.
They were relaxed as they trained at the University of San Diego on Sunday morning before heading north, with plenty of jokes flying around in the 15 minutes the media were allowed to watch.
That isn’t to say they haven’t been diligent in their preparations – just that they don’t seem to be feeling much pressure at all, ahead of the biggest match most of them will have ever played, even after they were dealt a blow with midfielder Matt Garbett, an expected starter, suffering a hamstring injury in training on Saturday.
All Whites coach Darren Bazeley said at one stage on Sunday: “Once the game starts, sometimes the crowd disappears”.
That is exactly what he is hoping it will be like for his players, who subsist on a diet of typically low-key competitive fixtures in Oceania and friendlies their opponents don’t always take as seriously as they do, which often means they lack intensity.
“That’s the place we need to get to, where we're playing our game,” he said. “There's going to be a lot of distractions around. I want the players to enjoy that. They should enjoy the big crowd. That's why you play football, to be in these big games and these big occasions, and the challenge is to just go and perform.”
The Iranian coach and striker – Amir Ghalenoei and Mehdi Taremi – did not really engage with questions about whether local Iranians would be cheering for or against them.
“The players of the national team – we play for every Iranian, be it in the diaspora or in the country,” Taremi said in an answer translated from Persian by FIFA.
“In every country, people have different opinions, but we are here as footballers to unite people and we will try to bring joy to all Iranians irrespective of where they live.”
Iran’s preparation for the World Cup has been clouded by the United States and Israel’s war against them that appears to be on the verge of ending after more than three months.
Though the playing squad and key coaching staff appear to have all ultimately made it to LA, there were doubts around their visa situation and some members of their wider party were not able to get the visas required to enter.
Their training base had to be moved from Arizona in the US to Tijuana in Mexico, just across the border from where the All Whites have been in San Diego.
Ghalenoei, in translated answers, said “of course that impacts us,” then added: “This kind of behaviour will impact negatively the spirit of football. Football is supposed to bring nations and cultures together. Whether we win, whether we lose, that is a personal feeling we have”.
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