Chris Wood has fired Nottingham Forest into surprise UEFA Champions League contention and now the striker wants to score the goals to help New Zealand make history at the FIFA World Cup.
New Zealand are strong favorites to qualify out of the Oceania region over the next week and reach the World Cup for only the third time.
At the country’s two previous appearances at the finals, in 1982 and 2010, they have failed to win a match in six attempts.
Photo: AFP
With Wood captaining the side and leading from the front, he told local media yesterday that the current squad can finally deliver a World Cup victory.
“That will be our goal if we’re there, to win a game and progress,” the in-form 33-year-old told Radio New Zealand. “It’s the mentality of proving it, and I believe we can. The squad is only getting bigger and better, and moving on to bigger and better clubs. They’re proving around the world that they’re good enough and capable enough of playing in the best leagues in the world.”
Wood is enjoying the best season of his career, hitting 18 goals in the English Premier League, and rubbing shoulders in the scoring charts with Alexander Isak and Erling Haaland.
His exploits have helped propel Forest into third place and if they stay there it would guarantee the Champions League.
Other New Zealanders playing in Europe include Marko Stamenic at Olympiacos in Greece, Tyler Bindon at Reading and Matt Garbett with NAC Breda in the Netherlands.
Next year’s World Cup in the US, Canada and Mexico has been expanded to 48 teams, ensuring a team from Oceania will gain automatic qualification.
To seal their place, New Zealand must first beat Fiji on Friday in Wellington before a decisive qualifier against either New Caledonia or Tahiti on Monday next week.
“This team is probably one of the best ones that [we’ve had] in history, but they have to prove that on the pitch to class themselves as one of those. Making a World Cup is the way to do that,” said Wood, who has scored 41 goals in 80 games for New Zealand.
Japanese badminton star Chiharu Shida on Tuesday told Chinese fans to “stop stalking” her, adding that she was “very scared” by the unwanted attention. Shida, who won women’s doubles bronze at the Paris Olympics last year, has a strong following in China partly because of her engagement with the local culture. The 27-year-old, currently competing at the Badminton Asia Championships in Ningbo, China, has been dubbed the “Badminton Goddess” by fans and media. She hit out at some supporters on Tuesday, accusing them in an Instagram post of taking their fandom too far. “Every time we compete in China we always experience the harm
Two people died on Thursday after fans and police clashed outside the Estadio Monumental in Santiago ahead of a game in South America’s Copa Libertadores, Chilean authorities said. The fatalities happened shortly before the match between Chile’s Colo-Colo and Brazilian club Fortaleza, when police blocked about 100 fans when they attempted to enter the stadium. There were conflicting accounts of how the fatalities occurred, with local media reporting that one of the dead was a 13-year-old boy. The other victim was an 18-year-old woman, according to a relative at the hospital where she was treated. The fans died after being caught underneath a
A potential European league could be a gold mine for the NBA as the top-flight North American league looks to muscle its way into a deep pool of talent across the Atlantic Ocean. The NBA is exploring the launch of a European league with world basketball governing body FIBA as a partner, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said last week, with an eye toward a 16-team format made up of 12 permanent clubs and four qualifiers. The continent’s longstanding Euroleague quickly signaled its readiness to enter into talks with the NBA, even as it has balked at the idea of another league in
Tadej Pogacar on Sunday won an epic see-saw showdown at the Tour of Flanders, soloing home from 15km, with Mads Pedersen edging Mathieu van der Poel to second at the line a minute later with Wout van Aert fourth. The duel between the Slovenian and defending champion Van der Poel played out across the 17 hills in bright sunshine before Pogacar broke away. World champion Pogacar, who won the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France last year, collected his eighth one-day Monument, moving ahead of one-day specialist Van der Poel on seven. “The goal was to win, but at
RSS