Nottingham Forest's New Zealand striker Chris Wood. Photo: AFP
Chris Wood is the superstar Kiwi footballer in the English Premier League who will spearhead the All Whites' next charge to the world stage.
If you want to be a famous sport writer in New Zealand, you probably shouldn't specialise in football.
The beautiful game usually takes a back seat here ... but that could all be changing.
With two teams now in the Australian football league, vocal and growing crowds, and some fantastic players looking at forming the All Whites team ahead of next year's World Cup, football is on the up.
And then there's Chris Wood.
The New Zealand captain is making headlines in the UK as he helps his Nottingham Forest team make a push towards the top of the best competition in the world.
Today on The Detail we look at the player who, despite being the country's second-highest paid athlete (after basketball's Steven Adams) and having a huge profile in England, barely rates a mention on our sports pages.
That is, until last weekend, when he scored a hat-trick in his team's 7-0 rout of Brighton.
He's just re-signed for Forest for two years in spite of being 33 years old. Fans sing songs about him, and it's unlikely he can wander down the road from his home unnoticed. A TikTok ditty (search up 'if Chris Wood could, Chris Wood would') has had radio airplay here and in the UK. Stadiums of fans shout "Chris Wood's on fire" and the headlines write themselves when a man named Wood plays for Forest.
Recently he returned to New Zealand to play a game in Hamilton to what RNZ football correspondent Matthew Nash describes as a "fantastic reception".
"You could see that there were a lot of kids there from clubs all over the Waikato, Bay of Plenty in particular, who got to see him play for the first time. You could see on their faces they were so [pleased] to see him play, and scoring goals in front of their very eyes.
"I think Chris Wood is the poster boy of the All Whites, he's definitely the standout.
"He will be the person who spearheads any World Cup qualification for the All Whites."
That qualification is looking very likely for 2026 as the game here goes from strength to strength, with big support for the new Auckland FC club joining the Australian A League.
FIFA has also expanded the competition, so that's good news for New Zealand too.
There's no doubt Wood will be at the forefront of our effort.
"He always comes back," says former All White Noel Barkley. "He even comes back when he's injured.
"The games that they play in New Zealand, they're usually against you know, Tonga or Fiji or Samoa. They don't need Chris Wood for those games but he still comes back. Because it's in the FIFA window he has the right to come back. He came back once last year when he was injured - he just came to sit on the bench.
"To be around to score, to help the younger players, that's his value to the All Whites.
"And from what I'm reading about what's happening at Nottingham Forest - because all those players around him, they're all young kids, they're all early 20s - he's having that same effect. I heard the Nottingham Forest owner saying he's worth as much off the pitch as he is on the pitch. Obviously he's a great leader and it bodes well for a World Cup in the Americas next year."
Wood is described as having an 'old fashioned' style of play that involves popping up near the box for a well-placed cross from his fellow-star team mates and using his height (1.91m) and strength to belt the ball into the goal. It's a style that fits well into Forest's game plan.
He's not the fastest man on the pitch, but he makes up for that in intelligence and an ability to read the play.
But, like many top Kiwi athletes who the foreign press takes an interest in, he's often described as "humble".
Is he New Zealand's greatest ever footballer?
Barkley and Nash have different views on that - listen to the podcast to find out:
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