Ben Waine's Journey to the World Cup: From Struggles to Triumph
Ben Waine was nowhere near a World Cup when he was nowhere near Port Vale’s matchday squad.
Not long ago, the New Zealander was training all week and watching from the stands at the weekend, wondering if he had made a mistake crossing the world to chase the English game. Now he is preparing for what Gianni Infantino grandly calls “104 Super Bowls” with a very different outlook.
“It has been a tough season. I’m not going to lie,” he told Sky Sports. “There was a good amount of time where I wasn’t in the squad at all. It sucked in the moment but it was probably one of the best things to happen to me. I was really able to work on my game.”
Port Vale went down. Waine went up.
The club’s relegation did not spare anyone, but on a personal level the 25-year-old forward found a foothold. The turning point came in March, in the FA Cup, under the lights and under pressure. Sunderland in town, the tie in the balance, and Waine rising to glance in the winning goal.
“It made a tough season a little bit more bearable,” he said. It did more than that. It proved the hours were not wasted.
Crafting a finish, then living it
That header was not a fluke. It was a training-ground ghost suddenly made flesh.
Waine points straight to the one-on-one work with individual coach Simon Ireland. “Literally, every day we would work on one or two types of finish, just focusing on the technique,” he explained.
The obsession was composure. Repetition. A finish he could trust when the brain shut off and the body took over.
“It was about trying to find that composure, that finish that I could go to without thinking so it became instinct. It gave me real purpose. I knew what I was working towards. Even when things were not going well, I had that to work on. It made me relax a bit more.”
He needed that calm. “Because I was so desperate to do well, I was rushing actions in front of goal.”
Most of the graft focused on striking the ball, but the goal that floored Sunderland came from the other strand of his work. A header, looped back across the goalkeeper. A picture he had already seen.
“The second finishing drill we didn’t do a huge amount of but I did a lot of visualising of it off the field as well. And the one goal that I actually pictured was that Sunderland goal, the kind of loopy header back across the goalkeeper. I had actually visualised it.
“It does not seem like one you would practise when you are just working on the technique of hitting the ball but that action of going across the goalkeeper is one we had worked on and it just became a bit more natural. It was really cool to see that come off.”
The moment deserved a celebration and Waine knew exactly where to go. A boy from a Newcastle-supporting family, scoring in front of Sunderland fans, cupped the noise with an Alan Shearer-style salute.
“It was just awesome. I had never seen the stadium like that before. It was absolutely bouncing,” he recalled.
That goal was one of eight for Port Vale, a respectable haul in a turbulent campaign and a clear sign of a player rediscovering himself.
“I kind of took it with both hands. It sounds silly but I actually enjoyed playing my football again.”
From Wellington to the grind
Enjoyment had not always followed him since leaving home.
Waine swapped Wellington Phoenix for Plymouth Argyle in January 2023, stepping into League One and into a different world. The ball is the same. Everything around it is not.
“I knew the jump to League One would be big. Not technically, but in terms of intensity and physicality, the adjustment was massive. And then you get this amazing promotion and you are playing Championship football all of a sudden. It almost came too quickly.”
He did score at that level, including at Elland Road against Leeds United, but minutes became scarce. A loan to Mansfield, meant to bring rhythm, brought frustration instead.
“That just did not work out at all.”
The easy answer was obvious: go home. Back to familiarity, back to comfort. He refused.
“I promised myself that however hard it got I was not going to go back. That would have been the easy option. I stuck it out and have come out of it as a better player and a better person.”
The payoff stands in front of him now. A World Cup. Not as a tourist, but with genuine belief he can affect it.
A “running nine” on the world stage
Waine is not new to big stages. He has already played at two Olympic Games for New Zealand, including a memorable clash with France at the Velodrome.
“France in the Velodrome was an awesome game to be a part of,” he said. Yet even that, he knows, is only a warm-up act.
“It is going to be another level up.”
New Zealand have been feeling that rise in standard in recent months. Waine scored in a 4-1 win over Chile in March, a statement result, but the All Whites have also taken their share of hits. Defeats to Colombia, Ecuador and Finland, followed by losses to Haiti and England, have exposed the gap they are trying to close.
“You have to realise that when we are stepping up and playing harder opposition, we cannot expect the results to be perfect. We have had to mentally adjust.”
For Waine, there may be a tactical adjustment too. He calls himself “a running nine” who likes to “press hard and get in behind the opposition”, but he is realistic. Chris Wood is the country’s star striker and record scorer. Nobody is pushing him out of the middle.
So Waine has shifted. At Port Vale he spent time off the left and it might be his ticket to minutes at this World Cup.
“At the start, I was a bit hesitant but I see it as a really positive thing. It just felt really natural. I am actually playing on the left, on the right and down the middle now. It adds another dynamic, which should help my case.”
The versatility is one thing. The education under Wood is another.
“As a striker, you can barely touch the ball all game but when that one chance comes, you had better take it. He has proven time and time again that he can do that.”
Patience, then punishment. One chance. That is the lesson.
Underdogs with a target
New Zealand open against Iran, then face Egypt and Belgium. On paper, it is a group that leaves them unfancied, but not hopeless.
“My first thought was that we have actually got a chance here. Everyone sees us as underdogs but we want to take the opportunity that is in front of us. We want to get our first win on the world stage and we want to get out of the group for the first time ever.”
The names are big. The ambitions are bigger. Mohamed Salah looms over that Egypt fixture, and Waine knows where his team-mates’ eyes might go at full-time.
He laughs at the idea of securing the Liverpool forward’s shirt. “I am assuming there will be a few people pulling rank.”
There is something else he would rather leave with anyway. A moment. The sort that lives forever in a small football nation’s memory.
“There is going to be that opportunity to be the hero. You just want that one moment.”
Maybe it comes with another Shearer celebration, arm aloft on the grandest stage. “Maybe it will reappear,” he said, still smiling at the thought.
For now, the focus is simpler: keep squeezing everything out of himself. “To squeeze the most out of my potential.” After what he calls “a lot of ups and downs”, he has hauled himself to the edge of something remarkable.
The chance is there. As he knows better than most now, it just has to be taken.
