Aston Villa have a man in New Zealand's World Cup camp.

Kenny McMillan, a sports science and fitness coach at Villa, is part of New Zealand's back room team in South Africa and was in the dugout when they pulled off a famous 1-1 draw with reigning champions Italy on Sunday.

Since the pre-tournament camp in Austria, he has had vital input into training sessions, warm-ups, nutrition and helping the players adjust to the altitude.

"My main role over here has been looking after the sports science and the fitness coaching," McMillan told the Villa website.

"So I've been responsible for the planning of the pre-World Cup camp, then obviously with the training sessions I've got an input with the manager and the coaches with what gets done.

"I take all the warm-up sessions, the strength sessions and the recovery sessions.

"I look after the nutrition and the altitude acclimatisation as well, then obviously on matchdays I'll do the pre-match warm-up. So it is pretty much the same sort of thing I do for the reserves back at Villa."