The All Whites enter their hardest window of the season heavily weakened – but that opens doors for players to impress ahead of the FIFA World Cup next year.
The world no. 85 Kiwi side will be taking on Colombia (13th) at 1pm Sunday NZT without star striker and top goal scorer Chris Wood as well as five of their front-line players (Tim Payne, Liberato Cacace, Ryan Thomas, Alex Paulsen and Callum McCowatt) due to injury.
Their absence makes way for new players to get exposure and impress head coach Darren Bazeley and the coaching group.
Owen Parker-Price and Jesse Randall have been brought in for potential debut, joining James McGarry and Nik Tzanev as the players who replace the experienced quartet who are out.
"People are hungry to show that should have been selected in the first place or that they are a longer-term prospect, I think it’s good for them," All Whites head coach Darren Bazeley said.
After facing Colombia in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the All Whites will then head to Harrison, New Jersey, to play Ecuador (23) at 2.30pm Wednesday NZT.
The team's facing the South Americans with high hopes after strong showings against top tier European opposition Poland, Norway and Ukraine this year.
In their final international window of 2025, the All Whites will be aiming for an elusive win over top-tier opposition.
The game's richest currency, goals, have been hard to come by for the All Whites against high quality opposition so that will be one of the clear objectives – one made increasingly more difficult without Wood and co.
Colombia, enter the window in good form – unbeaten in their last seven matches including comprehensive wins over Mexico and Venezuela and are headlined by superstar forward Luis Díaz.
Bazeley said these are the games they need to win or at least be competitive if the Kiwi side are wanting to have a strong showing at the World Cup next year.
"An acceptable result is a win; a draw would be great. We don’t go into any game not expecting a result. The boys are confident," he said.
"We are positive, but we know the challenge. We aren’t silly, we are not going to go around saying, 'yeah, we are going to beat Colombia' but we are heading into the game to prepare to try and beat them."
The South American matches come in the final window of 2025 for the All Whites and with two more international windows before the World Cup in 2026, all players and coaches are looking for two results to continue building confidence and momentum into the showpiece event.
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