New Zealand at the FIFA World Cup

New Zealand's opening matches were during the 1970 AFC/OFC qualifiers losing away to Israel 4–0 and 2–0, and eliminated. For the 1974 AFC/OFC qualification they drew three matches and finished bottom of the group behind Australia, Iraq and Indonesia. With an opening 6–0 win against Taiwan, they finished behind Australia in the 1978 AFC/OFC qualification matches. In the 1982 AFC/OFC qualification they topped the first round group, ahead of Australia, then finished behind Kuiwait in the final round, before defeating China 2–1 to qualify for the 1982 World Cup final tournament. In the group stage New Zealand lost their opening match 5–2 to Scotland, then lost to the Soviet Union 3–0 and Brazil 4–0, exiting the tournament.

For both the 1986 and 1990 OFC qualifying groups they finished third behind Australia and Israel.^[a] With an expanded OFC competition from 1994 onwards, New Zealand topped their group ahead of Fiji but in the second round they were defeated by Australia 4–0 in aggregate. In the 1998 qualification edition they finished ahead of Fiji, and then lost 5–0 in aggregate to Australia. With four out of four wins in the group stage for the 2002 OFC qualifiers, Australia defeated New Zealand 6–1 in aggregate in the second round. With losses to Australia and Vanuatu, New Zealand did not advance from the first round in the 2006 qualification edition.

New Zealand won their second round group in the 2010 OFC qualifiers and then went on to defeat Bahrain 1–0 in aggregate to qualify for the 2010 World Cup finals. In the group stage, New Zealand opened against Slovakia with 1–1, then world cup holders Italy 1–1 followed by 0–0 with Paraguay. Finishing third in the group, they failed to advance. In the 2014 qualifiers, they topped their third round group, despite an earlier loss to New Caledonia, and then lost in the playoff 9–3 in aggregate to Mexico. They topped their group in the 2018 qualifiers, then defeated the Solomon Islands, before losing to Peru in the final play-off spot. In the 2022 qualifiers, five wins and a final 5–0 win against the Solomon Islands, followed by a 1–0 loss to Costa Rica resulted in non-qualification.