The 22-year-old midfielder admitted it has been hard to encourage fans to invest their time and energy into the national side but he is hopeful they will be able to see how the team are progressing under the coach.

He told World Soccer magazine: “A lot of fans invest a lot of their efforts into rugby, so it’s really difficult for them to be able to turn towards football and to see the changes that have been made in the last two, three years.

“If you look at our team, it’s a young team. The generation that is coming through now is really very good. Obviously the results will be coming.

“We have the World Cup to look forward to. I think that we will be competing there, touch wood.

“Our coach is really influencing us to play modern football. He is trying to reinvent our football identity.

“I think it’s a really attractive style of play and I believe that we have a huge potential to do well at the world cup.”

Marko thinks New Zealand were very unlucky not to qualify for the last World Cup in Qatar.

He said: “We came quite close to qualifying for the last World Cup but we lost in the play-off game 1-0 to Costa Rica.

“It was supposed to be a tie with a home and away game but, due to COVID, there was only one match at a neutral venue in Qatar.

“We dominated the whole game but they scored an early goal and after that they only defended.”