What is the professional soccer landscape in New Zealand?

Soccer 101

TSS

Sports, Soccer

4.9 • 822 Ratings

🗓️ 25 April 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We're continuing our series profiling the domestic leagues of countries that have qualified for the 2026 World Cup, and this week we're heading to the land of marmite and rugby... to talk about soccer. It's New Zealand! What is the league structure? Which New Zealand clubs play outside the country? What does the future of the New Zealand National League hold? Those questions and many more answered on this week's show! WE HAVE A YOUTUBE CHANNEL! We're posting all our episodes here! Smash the like and subscribe etc.! JOIN THE TSS+ PATREON! Check out our Patreon, which houses bonus podcasts, access to our exclusive Discord, blog posts, videos, and much more. Become a member today at patreon.com/totalsoccershow!

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome, everybody to Soccer 101. My name is Taylor Rochland, as always. I'm joined by my friend and yours, Mr. Kiwi himself.
0:21.9	It's Graham Ruffin. Graham. Congratulations. You are from New Zealand for this episode.
0:25.8	Oh, I'm quite happy with that. I've never been to New Zealand, but it looks like a beautiful
0:28.9	country. Do you think the athletic know that part of the deal of us doing this series was that
0:33.2	they have to pay for us to visit every single country that we're doing. I mean, Iran last time, that might not work out too well for us.
0:39.3	But as I say, New Zealand looks like a great country.
0:41.3	So when are we going?
0:42.8	Dibs on not being the one to go to Iran.
0:44.8	Between Scotland and the United States, I feel like you're going to have the better of the times there.
0:49.3	But I do look forward to our eventual invoice and the athletic being basically broken and financially
0:55.8	destitute because of this journey. But it was worth it, Graham, because we are continuing our series
1:00.4	discussing the leagues of national teams that have qualified for the 2026 World Cup. I will say this.
1:07.5	We're quickly running out of teams that have qualified for the World Cup. We need some more
1:11.2	to get through. We have talked about Japan and Iran. It's time to get into New Zealand,
1:16.5	a nation with its own intricacies and confusions when it comes to league soccer, Graham.
1:20.7	Yeah, absolutely. This league system is kind of nuts. I also like it at the same time.
1:27.6	Once you get your head round it, it makes some sense.
1:30.4	But I have to admit, it took me about 15 to 20 minutes to truly understand.
1:34.2	And I've written a little bit about soccer in New Zealand this season because
1:38.3	Auckland FC and we'll come on to this in this episode.
1:41.7	Auckland FC are an expansion team in the Australian A-League and they are top of the table
1:47.6	after 24 games.
	...

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