Chris Wood

Chris Wood is widely seen as the finest footballer New Zealand has produced. As of 2026 he captains the All Whites, holds their records for both caps and goals, and leads the line for Nottingham Forest. He bloomed late: his first 20-goal Premier League season came in 2024–25, when he was 33. The road there was long. He scored on his senior debut at 14 for Kiwi side Cambridge, shone at the 2007 Under-17 World Cup and earned a trial at West Bromwich Albion, who gave him a Premier League debut off the bench in 2009. A run of loans followed. Barnsley brought no goals in seven league games, while Birmingham brought a hat-trick against Millwall and a winner deep into stoppage time against Club Brugge in the Europa League. Leicester signed him in 2013 and won the Championship a year later, but a loan at Ipswich in 2015 ended without a goal. The breakthrough came at Leeds United, wearing the number 9. In 2016–17 he scored 27 league goals to finish as the Championship's top scorer, including an injury-time bicycle kick to rescue a draw against Fulham. Burnley paid a club-record fee for him that summer, and he repaid them at once with a stoppage-time equaliser against Tottenham at Wembley. Over four and a half seasons he was a steady top-flight scorer, and in 2021 he became the first New Zealander to hit a Premier League hat-trick. A £25 million move to Newcastle in 2022 made him the most expensive Oceania player ever, but chances there were scarce. Forest is where he found his best form. He scored a hat-trick against his old club Newcastle, passed Bryan Roy as Forest's top Premier League scorer with a winner at Old Trafford, and became the first New Zealander named Premier League Player of the Month. His 20th goal of 2024–25 came in the draw that secured Forest's first European place in 30 years, and fellow players voted him into the PFA Team of the Year. A knee injury kept him out from October 2025 until April 2026. To judge him, look at how the goals arrive. Some are struck from distance, like a 25-yard shot for his first professional goal. Others come from being in the right spot: his first Forest goal was an 84th-minute tap-in against Manchester City. When Birmingham sent him clear against Leicester, The Independent praised the composure he showed in rounding Kasper Schmeichel and finishing from an angle. He made his New Zealand debut at 17, was the baby of the 2010 World Cup squad, became the youngest All Whites captain in 2014, and in 2022 passed Vaughan Coveny as the men's record scorer. At the 2026 World Cup he set up two goals for Elijah Just in a 2–2 draw with Iran; no New Zealander had made two assists in a World Cup match before.