Soccer: Winston keeps clubs and hearts at arm's length

All Whites football player Winston Reid in Italy soccer shirt poses for a family Christmas picture. Photo / Supplied

With the flashy earring and Azzurri replica shirt, he could pass for any young Italian football fan.

But the teenager posing for a family Christmas picture is New Zealand's own World Cup hero Winston Reid.

The 21-year-old has been feted as a national sporting superstar since his heroic late goal against Slovakia.

And speculation is mounting that he could be on the verge of a megabucks transfer to one of Europe's leading clubs.

Reid is contracted to Danish team FC Midtjylland until 2012, but his transfer value of $2.2 million could soar with another strong performance against Italy tonight.

His Danish agent said last night that there had been a lot of interest from major European clubs, believed to include giants of the Italian top flight Serie A.

Ivan Marko Benes said: "It's fantastic how well he has done. There is no doubt that the World Cup will put him in the frame for some of the bigger clubs.

"When you do well at a World Cup there will always be a lot of interest. It's always been a dream of his to play in the English Premier League."

The 1.9m defender switched allegiance to his country of birth a few months ago after playing age-group football for Denmark.

Benes added: "He felt he had to play for New Zealand because he wants to move there when his playing days are over and because most of his family are there. But we in Denmark are all very proud of how well he has done."

Australian football agent Peter Kelly agreed Reid would be in hot demand.

"When you score a goal like that in such an important tournament all the talent scouts sit up and take note. His value will be on the rise."

The frenzied attention is a far cry from Reid's humble beginnings on Auckland's North Shore.

His mother Prue took him to Takapuna AFC as a 4-year-old where he was accepted after displaying silky skills to the club's midgets coach Joe Boyle.

Boyle, who coached Reid for six years, says his protege could score goals from inside the opposition's half even aged nine.

"We played on fullsize pitches and he could kick a ball a long way, even in those days. I remember one which went sailing over the head of the goalie and into the net.

"I discouraged him from trying to score those long-range goals, unless we were playing our main rivals, North Shore."

Boyle said Reid's number one supporter was his mother Prue, a former office manager, who was also the midget team's manager.

In 1998 Prue married Jens Bjerregaard, who was working in New Zealand for hydraulics manufacturer Danfoss. They shifted to Denmark in 1999, with an 11-year-old Winston.

A year later Reid returned to New Zealand and turned up at his old club asking to play.

"His game had gone to a different level," said Boyle. "His passing, his vision, he was trying to do things with the ball that no one else could even recognise."

Reid opted to play for Denmark because he wasn't a keen traveller in his teenage days.

But his aunt, Susan Reid, said he was still very much a Kiwi boy, and she used to ply him with Vogel's bread, pineapple lumps and chocolate fish on his annual Christmas trips home.

Reid, who is single, has also been the subject of intense interest from the fairer sex, with offers of marriage flooding in.