{"id":483019,"date":"2026-06-18T04:21:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T04:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/483019\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T04:21:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T04:21:10","slug":"fifa-world-cup-all-whites-forward-kosta-barbarouses-swaps-shirts-with-welsh-influencer-after-iran-draw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/483019\/","title":{"rendered":"Fifa World Cup: All Whites forward Kosta Barbarouses swaps shirts with Welsh influencer after Iran draw"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhat a night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barbarouses responded positively to the post in the comments.<\/p>\n

\"AllAll Whites forward Kosta Barbarouses swapped shirts with a Welsh content creator after New Zealand’s draw with Iran at the 2026 Fifa World Cup. Photo \/ @cymrogav<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat a guy, Welsh shirt going straight into the collection,\u201d the All White responded.<\/p>\n

Murphy told the BBC that Barbarouses had been watching his YouTube channel for about a decade.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe scored the goal that got New Zealand into the World Cup<\/a>,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw him a couple of years ago on my Instagram, and we were sending messages back and forth.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he said \u2018if Wales qualifies, we\u2019ll be in the same area at the same time, and I can sort you out with tickets\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we didn\u2019t make it, he didn\u2019t think I would come \u2013 \u2018well you obviously don\u2019t know me because I am still coming,\u2019 I said.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murphy said the striker made a quick dash into the changing rooms to deliver him an All Whites jersey.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was bonkers at the end.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe ran all the way to the changing rooms to bring his shirt back to me, and we swapped shirts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI took one of my favourite Wales shirts, so now there\u2019s a striker in New Zealand squad with a Wales Umbro shirt from the \u203290s.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy girlfriend turned to me and said \u2018what\u2019s going on?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s only been to one football match before \u2013 Leyton Orient v Bolton Wanderers and now Iran v New Zealand. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe asked \u2018is this what football\u2019s always like?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The 36-year-old Barbarouses is playing at his first World Cup<\/a> after not being selected in the squad for the 2010 tournament<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t feature in New Zealand\u2019s 2-2 draw with Iran<\/a>, but said before the tournament he was ready to support captain Chris Wood as best he could<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d love to see, like everyone in our country would, Chris Wood be there and scoring the goals for us and I\u2019ll be ready to support him and the team whether that\u2019s starting, coming on for 45 minutes, 10 minutes, five minutes, I\u2019ll be ready and I\u2019ll be ready to perform,\u201d Barbarouses said.<\/p>\n

Go all in to unlock every Fifa World Cup 2026 match with a TVNZ+ Event Pass<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWhat a night.\u201d Barbarouses responded positively to the post in the comments. All Whites forward Kosta Barbarouses swapped…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[74,5263,191572,10542,40671,36862,43765,19134,8235,16609,242592,111,139,69,20248,133485,213,51052,40749,16670,135157,5264,102,377,80],"class_list":["post-483019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-after","tag-all","tag-barbarouses","tag-cup","tag-draw","tag-fifa","tag-flew","tag-forward","tag-influencer","tag-iran","tag-kosta","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-opener","tag-shirts","tag-sports","tag-swap","tag-swaps","tag-watch","tag-welsh","tag-whites","tag-with","tag-world","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483019","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=483019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}