{"id":383387,"date":"2026-04-17T00:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T00:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/383387\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T00:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T00:57:08","slug":"world-cup-worries-as-chris-wood-suffers-fresh-knee-blow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/383387\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup worries as Chris Wood suffers fresh knee blow"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s been an unwelcome sight for All Whites fans, with captain Chris Wood<\/a> limping off with a fresh knee injury early in Nottingham Forest’s Europa League quarterfinal with Porto this morning.<\/p>\n

Wood, who has missed much of the season with a knee injury<\/a> and had surgery before Christmas<\/a>, took a heavy blow from Jan Bednarek.<\/p>\n

Bednarek was sent off, and while Wood tried to continue, he was substituted shortly afterwards.<\/p>\n

‘He wasn’t a class player’: How Chris Wood went from eager kid to football legend \u2013 Watch on TVNZ+<\/a><\/p>\n

Forest won the game 1-0 and would advance to the semi-finals to face fellow English side Aston Villa. <\/p>\n

Following this morning’s match, Forest head coach V\u00edtor Pereira said he thought Wood would recover. <\/p>\n

Wood was expected to lead the line for New Zealand at the upcoming World Cup, with the All Whites due to play Iran, Egypt and Belgium. <\/p>\n

He missed the All Whites’ last two internationals against Finland and Chile in late March. <\/p>\n

Before the Porto match, Wood said his knee injury would likely take “years of managing, throughout my whole career and my life\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I\u2019m playing with the kids, playing golf or doing whatever I do after football, it\u2019s going to be there.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always going to be in the back of my mind that I have to keep myself in top shape, ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watch the All Whites’ FIFA World Cup and warmup matches live and free on TVNZ+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s been an unwelcome sight for All Whites fans, with captain Chris Wood limping off with a fresh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2965,2966,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-383387","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-all-whites","9":"tag-fifa-world-cup","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}