2026 All Whites International Fixtures

Minny don’t look making the MLS playoffs. The November India games in NZ could make a nice Boxy AWs swansong retirement tour. Maybe even Smith as well

The only international carrot left for Boxy might be the 2028 LA Olympics as an overage player. US has been his home for many years. But only if for some reason Surman was unavailable 

According to FIFA stats:

The ideal individual and team age bracket to win a FIFA World Cup is 26 to 28 years old, with the historical median average starting lineup age sitting at 27 years and 57 days. This window perfectly balances physical peak condition with accumulated elite match experience. 

Historical data shows that roughly 86.4% of all World Cup-winning starting XIs fit into the 26-to-28 age sweet spot

40 years old? 
Messi, is Messi for an out field player. For everybody else the national team coach should grow a pair and retire them.

It's not rude to make changes from the world cup. Many of the teams in this competition will also make changes. All I'm saying is that the All Whites coach should be making a few changes with an eye to the future. Besides, I'm sure some players coaches are going to have a few words about selecting certain AW players for the tournament. I can see certain AW players in the Premier League get a hard time from their coach about going to Japan in September/October. Not that they will listen to such talk. 

Should aim really to call up the best squad, particularly for the starting eleven, but looking to give more young players a chance off the bench.

Currently I think we should be looking something like:

Starting XI: A Paulsen, L Cacace, F Surman, T Bindon, C Elliott, J Bell, M Stamenic, E Just, R Thomas, C McCowatt, C Wood

Bench: M Crocombe, M Woud, F de Vries, M Boxall, N Pijnaker, T Payne, A Rufer, J Randall, L Brooke-Smith, L Bayliss, O Parker-Price, C Piper

Injured: M Garbett, B Old

Fringe: H Gray, J McGarry, S Sutton, D Wilkins, G Stanger, I Hughes, M Sheridan, S Singh, L Rogerson, B Waine, R Bidois, M Mata, S Ukich, (Lee H)

Both Old & Garbett might be back in time, but I think probably too close for picking them to be the best idea. Gray could go over Woud, Singh possibly over OPP (Baze might even start him over Thomas) and the Chris Wood back-up has plenty of options, none which clearly stand out but all a lot younger than Barbarouses.

Think it may be fair to exclude the 36 plus club however.