But if the plucky Kiwis can somehow pull off the seemingly impossible and make it out of Group F, Bertos has only one opponent in mind that he would like to pit his considerable skills against.
The 28-year-old is of Greek descent and has always dreamed of meeting the land of his father’s birth on the international stage.
He was hoping to be drawn with them in the group stages but Bertos and his team mates have instead had to settle for Slovakia, Paraguay and defending champions Italy.
That trio will provide a challenge of the tallest order for coach Ricki Herbert’s men and, despite positive performances in recent days against Australia and Serbia, Bertos knows they are up against it and that his Greek goal might have to be put on hold.
“We can’t really talk that far ahead because we have to be more realistic and concentrate on how we are going to get results in the group games,” he says. “If we can get that far it would just be nice to play anyone but Greece in particular would be special for me.”
The skilful winger was born in Wellington to his Greek father George, an accountant, and Maori mother Gayle, a company administrator.
He grew up in Miramar, the same suburb that produced All Whites legend and Oceania player of the century Wynton Rufer, a member of New Zealand’s 1982 FIFA World Cup side.
Bertos was born just before that year – the country’s only appearance at the senior men’s world cup until the class of 2010 came along – and the Wellington College old boy says the shadow cast by the ’82 heroes was a hard one to break out of.
“When we spoke about New Zealand football before we qualified, it was always about what happened in ’82. Those guys did it back then and most of them weren’t even professional footballers,” he says.
But rather than viewing the need to repeat those feats as a burden, Bertos says the current crop used their predecessors’ achievements as a motivating tool.
“It made us think, ‘Everyone is talking about ’82, why can’t they talk about 2010?’ We wanted to be the next group of players talked about.”
They did just that by defeating Bahrain 1-0 over two legs in the Oceania-Asia qualifying play-off last November.
The side have gone on to prove they can compete against the world’s best by narrowly losing 2-1 against Australia and defeating 15th-ranked Serbia 1-0 in pre-cup friendlies.
The goal now is to continue that form in their final warm-up games – against Slovenia on Friday and Chile on June 9 – before trying to produce something special in their opening world cup match against Slovakia on June 15.
“We are really looking forward to testing ourselves,” Bertos says.
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