Comes full circle

Winston Reid

years ago. In managing his fitness, Reid has worked with the doctors and physios at his clubs, as well as those at New Zealand Football, including long-time All Whites head physio Roland Jeffery.

But since 2014, he has also worked with his own independent Danish consultant, Klavs Svendsen, who has become part of the All Whites set-up as well. Svendsen first came into the New Zealand environment at the 2017 Confederations Cup, even though that was a tournament Reid was ultimately forced to miss, and has been around whenever the centre back has been since then, working not only with him, but with the rest of the playing squad as well. Aside from Reid’s family – wife Yana and their twins – it’s likely no-one knows him more intimately. Svendsen was there to witness his longawaited return to action in 2019 – at a time when West Ham had him on a tight leash – and was there to witness his pain in the wake of the World Cup playoff loss in June.

‘‘The last game against Costa Rica, it was a very emotional game for him to play,’’ Svendsen told the yesterday.

‘‘Especially afterwards, I don’t think that people know that, because Winston is a very private person, but that game meant the world to him. It was hard for him that we didn’t qualify. After the game, me and him, we knew it was the end of his career, so we had a very special moment.’’

Once Reid’s 33rd All Whites outing has finished – ideally, with a first win over Australia since 2002 – the national team won’t be able to call on a centre back with Premier League experience for the first time since 2004, when Ryan Nelsen joined Blackburn Rovers.

Reid came along at the perfect time to succeed Nelsen as a leader at the back, and the likes of Bill Tuiloma and Nando Pijnaker will have big shoes to fill as the All Whites turn their attention to qualifying for the 2026 World Cup in North America.

Reid hasn’t yet shut the door on returning to club football, an arena where his efforts to date are best summed up by the fact that West Ham legend Mark Noble included him at centre back in an

XI of his team-mates as he approached his own retirement after 18 years and 550 appearances in the claret-andblue last May. The Kiwi made 192 appearances himself – 168 of them in the Premier League – and has his own place in Hammers folklore as the last player to score for the home team at the Boleyn Ground, the venue they left after more than a century of use in 2016, in a comeback win over Manchester Utd.

Yesterday morning, Reid and his team-mates got a taste of the reception that awaits them today when they signed autographs and posed for photos in downtown Auckland, as young fans got to meet heroes they’ve only watched on TV (or played as on Fifa, the popular video game series).

There was a strong contingent of youngsters from the Takapuna club, where Reid took his first steps as a footballer as a youngster in the late 90s, and when the

surprised him with a copy of his team photo from 1998, he quipped: ‘‘Where’d you get that from? Have you been in my bedroom?’’

From Auckland to Denmark, then to England and back again, Reid has lived the kind of career many New Zealand footballers can only dream of and he will retire as an All Whites legend. As he put it: ‘‘That I was lucky enough to play as a professional and an international for so many years – it’s amazing’’.

‘‘I was lucky enough to play as a professional and an international for so many years – it’s amazing’’.