Christian Bouckenooghe

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Christian "Kris" Bouckenooghe (born February 7, 1977) is a New Zealand/Belgium soccer player. He plays as a defender for Red Star Waasland in the Belgian Second Division.

He played 33 times (2 goals) for the New Zealand national soccer team, the All Whites.

He was born on the Cook Islands of a Cook Island (Polynesian) mother and a Belgian father, subsequently moving to New Zealand as a child, where he played his youth soccer. He has played for New Zealand at age-group level, including an play-off series against the South African under-23 team to qualify for the 2000 Sydney Olympics, scoring in the NZ team's narrow 3-4 and 0-1 losses in that series. All of his early career was spent as a midfielder or striker, until converting to defence at K.S.V. Roeselare in Belgium. His first professional club was Rotherham in England, who signed him as a teenager on the recommendation of former New Zealand national coach and ex Rotherham player, Kevin Fallon. From there he signed for KSV Roeselare in the 1990s, his first of two periods with the club. He is the first New Zealander to play in the Belgian First Division.

His career highlights include playing at both the 1999 and 2003 Confederations Cup in Mexico and France respectively, which New Zealand qualified for as Oceania champions after beating Australia, previously the dominant power in the region.

[edit] Club history

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