The New Football Ferns Manager Is… Tom Sermanni
Three weeks or so after the Muir Report was released – you know the one that came about after twelve different players said they’d never play for the Football Ferns coach again? – New Zealand Football have announced that Tom Sermanni will be the new Football Ferns coach, replacing the guy that twelve different players said they’d never play for again.
Enough’s been said about the last chap so best to shift the focus towards a positive future. And in that interest, the first obvious thing that sprung to mind was that they’d found another foreign male to take the gig. It would’ve been nice to see a kiwi woman given that opportunity, particularly after the Muir Report highlighted how rare it is to see a) female coaches employed for national teams and b) local coaches employed for national teams (the latter more common than the former). Scotsman Sermanni, who has spent his whole coaching career in Australia, America and Canada… is neither of those things.
But maybe that’s asking a bit much. For one thing, NZF’s lack of trust in local candidates has also meant a lack of investment in local candidates. They haven’t been running enough courses, all of that jazz. Meaning that while there are certainly some decent candidates out there, most of them are young/inexperienced. There were two NZers on the shortlist that made it into the footy media: Gareth Turnbull and Aaron McFarland. McFarland has worked as the Ferns assistant before (under Tony Readings) though had the weakest CV of the five candidates while Turnbull’s definitely done his apprenticeships… however his association with Andreas Heraf as his assistant surely ruined his chances. It’s a shame but it’s also undeniable. He was there on both tours. That’s not to say that he was complicit in Heraf’s approach, maybe he was or maybe he wasn’t, but it doesn’t exactly matter at this point. NZF needs to make amends and any continuity from the Heraf era would be a pretty awful look, to be honest.
Also on that shortlist were Jitka Klimova, Tom Sermanni and an unnamed female French coach. Any kiwi women hoping for a chance were kinda inhibited by the A-Licence requirements put upon the role, which hardly anyone has in this country… at least not yet. So while a female coach for a female team seems like a preference, it also wasn’t massively feasible at this time. Sure, they coudla picked Klimova over Sermanni, a Czech coach who has worked in Oz and was the NZ U19 coach for a year before leaving to coach the USA U19s & U20s. But she’s worked with youth international teams, Sermanni’s coached both Australia and America’s senior women’s international sides. At that final stage it’s gotta be a head to head and Sermanni better fits the bill.
However you’ve gotta keep in mind that he’s only been contracted until the end of the next World Cup… which is in June 2019. Which is, like, eight to nine months, depending on how far we go in the tournament (Anthony Hudson was also contracted ‘til the end of the World Cup but left soon after the All Whites were eliminated in qualifying, you may recall). There’s Oceania qualifying in November, with the squad for that to be named soon, and then there’s the probability of a few friendlies before the tournament itself, then the World Cup (should we make it) and after that we’re done-skees, ready for a new cycle.
It could be that Sermanni is re-appointed after the World Cup and the 65-year-old takes this team forward into the future. More likely is that NZF have picked a steady, experienced coach who they can trust not to bugger things up, looking to settle things down and play it safe ahead of a major tournament. Logically – and that’s not something you can usually take for granted with NZF but logically… - this buys them nine months to chuck some support behind the best local coaches and groom a few for consideration in the middle of next year. And a few hopefully means a few, as in not just one enthusiastic person doing everything like they’ve been known to encourage in the past. Gotta spread the wealth – it’s not only the top team that benefits when better coaching is encouraged… it’s everybody at every level.
As for this fella Sermanni, we can only make surface impressions right now until we see his team in action but he has coached the Aussie Matildas at a couple World Cups, getting them to the quarters in 2007 and 2011, as well as a spell with the USA women’s national team where he had a few solid friendly results but was crap in the Algarve Cup and was sacked a year out from the 2015 World Cup (don’t worry, he still went along as an assistant for the Canadian team). Most recently he was the inaugural coach of the Orlando Pride in the NWSL where he’d have gone up against the likes of Abby Erceg, Katie Bowen, Rosie White and Rebekah Stott over the last three seasons. Sermanni’s Pride made the playoffs in 2017 but he was dismissed a month ago after a disappointing 2018 campaign.
Now he’s gaffer for the Footy Ferns. As far as Sermanni’s career goes, there’s not a huge amount for him to prove. His efforts in America were perhaps a little disappointing but what he did with the Matildas was excellent and he only left to take up the USA gig, so it’s hard to see what more he could conceivably achieve with a Ferns team at this World Cup. The aim is always to win some games and progress from the group but that hasn’t happened at the last few major tourneys. It hasn’t looked likely over the last twelve months either. Perhaps the Muir Report can be a unifying experience, a vindicating experience that allows the team to play with confidence and freedom again. Sure hope so. But if things go astray then it won’t be Sermanni that cops it.
It isn’t only that which is counting against Sermanni though. Any coach is going to have a difficult time getting anything done with only eight months of preparation. Especially in an international footy environment which is only getting more and more crowded. NZ Football like to make a big deal about the Ferns’ top 20 ranking but that’ll quickly disappear with the growing investments being made in women’s football around the globe. Scotland beat the Ferns in a couple friendlies back in March and they’ve since qualified for the 2019 World Cup, their first ever World Cup. That at least puts those Ferns defeats into more perspective but the danger is that there are Scotlands all over the place ready to make similar emergences onto the big stage. New Zealand won’t get away with any complacency coming through their relatively simple Oceania qualifiers (can’t even take those for granted these days, mate – but it’d be absolutely stunning if they didn’t progress).
Then to add to things there’s Abby Erceg’s retirement, which we don’t yet know where she stands about with the new coach, and Hannah Wilkinson is in doubt following a serious knee injury a few weeks back. The Ferns should have a solid team, more than capable of upsetting a few jokers, but that does depend on there not being too many more injuries/unavailabilities since world class depth is tricky to come by, you know.
But something has happened. Something symbolic. The Football Ferns have had a positive development which finally allows them to get back to the business of playing football, which is that thing that they usually do in case you’ve forgotten. Like, we’ve got some incredible footy players that represent Aotearoa and for the last four months or so, leading into a few rather important World Cup qualifiers, they’ve been hanging back at their clubs during every international window because… well ultimately because of NZ Football’s incompetence. Fingers crossed now they can get back to doing what they’ve dedicated their careers to being their absolute best at. That’d be nice, right?
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