Return of key figure Joe Bell set to boost All Whites against England after ‘slap in the face’ loss to Haiti
Friday, 5 June 2026
What: FIFA World Cup warmup match, All Whites v England. Where: Raymond James Stadium, Tampa. When: 8am Sunday (NZT), TVNZ 2 and TVNZ+.
Tampa, Florida: The cavalry is coming for the All Whites – in the form of a trusty midfielder.
After sitting out Wednesday’s horror 4-0 loss to Haiti in Fort Lauderdale, Joe Bell is set to return for Sunday’s (8am NZT) high-profile FIFA World Cup warm-up clash with England in Tampa.
The 27-year-old missed four matches for his club side, reigning Norwegian champions Viking, leading into the All Whites’ World Cup camp, after suffering a minor calf injury.
That same sense of caution led to him not taking the field against Haiti, even though he had been involved in the vast majority of what the All Whites had done in training in Florida before their first warm-up match.
Speaking after the team’s first training in Tampa on Friday (NZT) – the first he has been 100% involved in since they assembled last week – Bell said the All Whites’ medical team had done a good job of “building up the intensity and the load into the legs”.
“It was a calf strain, probably over a month ago now. There’s obviously these huge games coming up, so I’ve been taking it a little bit cautiously, making sure the body is in the right place going into the first game. I’m on track, so things are looking good.”
Bell was missed not only against Haiti, but when the All Whites played Finland in Auckland in March and lost 2-0 and when they played Ecuador in New Jersey in November and lost 2-0, matches he missed due to loading concerns.
He also missed both matches the All Whites played last October – a loss to Poland and a draw with Norway – but is a certain selection for coach Darren Bazeley when fit, a supreme organiser at the base of midfield who does lots of little things well and helps set a strong platform for his team-mates to express themselves.
World No 4 England will be the highest-ranked – and highest-profile – opponent the world No 85 All Whites have faced since encountering World No 1 Spain at the FIFA Confederations Cup in 2009, a match they lost 5-0.
Bell said potentially facing the likes of Bayern Munich’s Harry Kane and Real Madrid’s Jude Bellingham would be just what they needed, coming nine days out from their tournament opener against Iran in Los Angeles.
“First and foremost, it's a great experience. They're going to be unbelievable players, and they're going to make us perform at our highest level in order to compete with them, which is the exact challenge we want, going into the World Cup.
“They're phenomenal players that are going to try expose our weaknesses, but that's exactly what you want going into it.
“It's going to be the mindset of recognising that it's going to be really tough, but taking positives from it.”
Since the FIFA rankings began in 1992, the All Whites have faced teams ranked inside the top 10 on 11 occasions, drawing twice – including against Italy at the 2010 World Cup – and losing nine times.
Midfielder Ryan Thomas is set to train with the team for the first time in Florida on Friday – a key milestone as he looks to return from a hamstring injury in the All Whites’ World Cup opener against Iran on June 16.
Thomas said he had made progress “ahead of schedule” and would “definitely” be in a position to play some part against Iran, though a start looks unlikely at this stage.
He said it been “annoying” watching his team-mates from the sidelines after completing an individual programme to date in the US.
Thomas and Bell watched the loss against Haiti – the All Whites’ heaviest in nine years– from the stands and Thomas offered his analysis of what went wrong.
“It was tough. We were a bit tentative at the start. After the first goal, we came into the game quite well. We controlled the tempo, that was quite good. We had a lot of the ball, created a lot of chances, put them under a lot of pressure – a little bit of [better] decision-making in the final third could have helped us out.
“Second half – I don’t know if it’s got something to do with the changes, or if it's got something to do with the climate –we just weren't quite where we should have been.
“They were very unorthodox, but had some good players, and it was maybe a good little slap in the face of the quality that we need, of the quality that we're going to be playing against.
“We've had a good chat about the game afterwards, so hopefully we can put that to work against England.”