All Whites captain Winston Reid (right) with West Ham striker Andy Carroll. Photo / Instagram.
Winston Reid was living the high life with West Ham team-mates in Dubai last week while the All Whites were playing in nearby Oman.
Reid is still recovering from a hip injury suffered five weeks ago and was not selected for the match in Muscat by New Zealand coach Anthony Hudson.
Hudson gave Reid a leave pass for the match to give him more time to recover after the central defender made his first start in five weeks for West Ham against Everton last weekend.
Hudson said Reid's absence from the All Whites trip was a decision made in the best interests of the player and his national team with the New Zealand coach in close contact with both his captain and West Ham manager Slaven Bilic.
"As I referenced in the press conference before we left, we would make a decision based upon all the evidence we had from club, player and medical staff," Hudson said.
"Taking into account this game was a friendly, with only one game in this window, and Winston had only played 90 minutes for over four weeks, we then felt it was in the best interest for the All Whites and Winston to stay and continue his rehab with his club and not to jump on a flight immediately after his game on Saturday, and then potentially not even play for us.
"The club allowed Winston to have a few days off in Dubai on the following Thursday, subject to him continuing his rehab programme while away. This trip and flight was at least five days after his last game and he would have had plenty of rehab leading up to it. This is a very different scenario to coming with us immediately after his club game five or six days earlier.
"Winston is an ultimate professional and a great example to young players in New Zealand and the captain out of our national team. His commitment to the All Whites is unquestioned."
Freed from club duty due to the international break, Reid seized on the opportunity to take a four-day holiday in Dubai with team mates Andy Carroll, Joey O'Brien and their wives.
The players are set to return to the club's Chadwell Heath training ground on Monday to prepare for next Sunday's visit to White Hart Lane.
English striker Carroll - overlooked for the national side in favour of the likes of Harry Kane and Jamie Vardy - and partner Billie Mucklow were the ringleaders as the group took in restaurants, nightclubs and sunning on the beach.
Former The Only Way is Essex star Mucklow and Carroll uploaded a host of snaps of the trip to their Instagram accounts, including some posing together in swanky nightspot White.
The White nightclub on the rooftop of the Meydan Racecourse Grandstand is one of Dubai's most exclusive venues - winning Best Nightclub at the Time Out Dubai Music & Nightlife Awards last year.
The outdoor venue has 360-degree views of Dubai and has a state-of-the-art lighting and visual system that offers a "sensory experience".
According to Time Out, only the privileged are granted entry - with two lines for either "walk ins" or "table reservations" who are shown directly to their seats where they can dine on a menu of sushi and drink bottles of spirits and champagne at extremely inflated prices.
The maki rolls sushi menu offers a range of sharing platters starting at around £25 and escalating to almost £150 for a platter with 96 pieces.
The table drinks menu, on the other hand, is reserved for the seriously wealthy with a 75cl bottle of Ciroc vodka costing £360 (NZ$838) and almost £2700 for a top of the range bottle of Chivas Regal 38.
A standard-sized bottle of Dom Perignon starts at more than £700, rising to an astonishing £44,780 for a 600cl oversized bottle of the brand's rose champagne.
The group lived up to their club's nickname at seafood spot Aprons and Hammers for lunch, donning bibs to tuck into their award-winning lobster, crab and shrimp.
Carroll and Reid took the opportunity to recreate the club's emblem using a pair of "hammers" that would ordinarily be sued for cracking open shellfish in the restaurant at Jumeirah Beach.
The quirky and modern award winning restaurant includes one of the largest indoor vertical gardens in the United Arab Emirates.