The Footy Ferns World Cup Journey Took A Setback With A 5-0 Hiding Against The USA
A 5-0 defeat is not exactly the result you want to see as you ramp up your preparation for the World Cup but that’s what the Football Ferns were served up against the USA in St Louis. They looked solid enough for the first half hour and then got caught sleeping for the first goal, conceded a second immediately after, and couldn’t hang with the Yanks once they started running out their star-studded bench. Five goals and that puts a sudden halt to some of that recent momentum.
To be honest, this just wasn’t a great matchup for the Ferns at this time. The USWNT (as they excruciatingly call themselves… better than USMNT at least) are the best team on the planet and the favourites to win the World Cup. We’re just hoping to make it out of the group stage, maybe win our first ever game at a World Cup in the process. America’s squad was announced two weeks ago, all based in the USA, and they’ve been in camp ever since having beating South Africa 3-0 four days before this game. Compare that to our squad and the kiwi players were being picked from all over the globe. Many of them played club footy on the weekend, while four more were unavailable because they still have another game to play this weekend. The Scandinavian leagues take a month and a half off for the World Cup but that doesn’t start ‘til next week so no Betsy Hassett, Rebekah Stott, CJ Bott, or Vic Esson then. At least two of them would have been likely to crack the starters here.
Curiously the US team was all selected from their domestic NWSL but that league doesn’t actually break for the World Cup other than one bye week for all involved during the group stage. So immediately after the World Cup, Abby Erceg and Katie Bowen (whose teams play each other this upcoming weekend but doubt they’ll be involved) will be straight back into it in the middle of their club seasons. But the US national team took all their World Cup squad out of the competition as soon as they were named so those clubs have all been weakened by the World Cup prep. Big reason why Erceg’s North Carolina Courage lost for the first time in 17 games last up. But yeah, they have the power to do that and thus hit up a game like this with maximum preparation while most of our girls were probably still jetlagged from flying in from Aotearoa or Europe.
Plus the other reason this was a bit of an unfortunate game was that, while it’s nice to test yourself against the best, this is not the kind of contest the Ferns need to be preparing for at the World Cup. If we play a team of America’s calibre then that’ll be mission accomplished already. I’d happily sign off on a faustian bargain that guaranteed us a 5-0 defeat to USA in France because it’d mean we made it out of our group. Ideally we’d be playing teams that best represent the challenges we’ll face from Netherlands, Canada, and Cameroon… but that’s not really something the Ferns and NZ Football can really control, I guess. Norway was a good opponent. The Cup of Nations was great experience too. USA not as much and I’ve got reservations about England at the start of June as well. But then if those teams come in offering friendlies then what are ya gonna do? We need the footy. Literally can’t afford to be picky about it.
So we played the USA and we got thrashed. Okay, what did we learn then? Not a whole lot, in all honesty, though the most interesting yarns came with the starting lineup that was named. It looked very much like the same shape as they’d played successfully against Norway with the back three yet instead we saw them shape up in a 4-2-3-1 … which was pretty much a case of Ali Riley sliding up to left wing and leaving a back four with Anna Green at LB. Rosie White played on the right wing so Sarah Gregorius was alone up top. Katie Bowen played right back. Ria Percival was in the midfield.
That last one was one of the few major debates about this XI, once you consider the players that were unavailable and the trends we’ve seen under Tom Sermanni. Both Bowen and Percy are top notch midfielders but they also play a lot of RB for their clubs and someone had to give it a go. This was the best arrangement. Katie Bowen plays basically exclusively as a right back for the Utah Royals these days while Ria Percival has had a good run as a CM for West Ham over the last month – including starting an FA Cup Final there. Always a big fan of players playing in the positions they’re used to if it can be helped. Jill Ellis clearly isn’t though – Crystal Dunn is a goal-scoring striker for the North Carolina Courage and yet for the national team she’s a left-back. Bit of an odd one when she seems to be right footed too. Some of those over-hit crosses of hers were a big boost to the sanity of the scoreline.
Despite having one less centre-back, this was a more defensive formation than usual – as you’d expect against the top team in the world. One more reason why this maybe wasn’t an ideal game to be playing right now. Two central defensive midfielders with Katie Duncan alongside Percival. Annalie Longo had good licence to get forward but mostly Gregorius was isolated as the fullbacks played deep to deal with the threat on the wings of Megan Rapinoe and Tobin Heath and the wingers tended to get sucked into defence as well. It was a defensive game by necessity.
Then again, it was the Ferns who had the first decent chance. Rosie White, who’d given everyone a scare in the second minute after she copped a head knock in a challenge against Dunn, had the ball fall to her on the bounce in the box and she put it over. Not an easy chance at all but it was New Zealand against the USA here and even inside the opening ten minutes of the game we can’t be wasting them ones. I mean, we were expected to lose anyway and probably would have regardless and you certainly can’t just expect players to smash the ball top corner on the dropping volley but just saying that scoring those worldies can be the difference for a team that doesn’t tend to create a whole heap against the best sides.
There were also a handful of set pieces which we thoroughly wasted and that’s another annoying one. Gotta get those ones inch perfect to threaten a team like this. To be fair, it doesn’t help much when Anna Green is trying to take a corner kick and the bloody advertising hoardings are in so close that she can’t get a run up going. Shout out to the pitch mics that caught her telling the lino that it was “bullshit”. There’s a kiwi hero right there.
Also, this game was played at Busch Stadium, home of the St Louis Cardinals baseball team, and that meant an infield that was pasted over with that rollout turf stuff and a couple stands of rabid fans (they had a superb crowd of more than 35k) which were kinda far away from the action… thus plenty of room for the ad hoardings too. Not saying it detracted from the game or anything but, like… surely there are some purpose-built ‘soccer’ stadiums in the United States that were available? This isn’t even about us, this is about the World Cup favourites playing on a baseball ground three weeks out from the start of the biggest tournament they play. Americans have honestly never gotten a grip on this sport. I mean… just look at this pitch a sec…
And the other thing is they called this the ‘Send-Off Series’… yet there wasn’t a red card in sight.
It’s best not to draw too many conclusions from a game like this, for all the reasons mentioned in the first few paragraphs. It was odd seeing Tom Sermanni trot his team out in a different formation yet again. Third different formation in the last three tours. I guess the flipside of that is for the most part they haven’t look actually disjointed from that, which fits Sermanni’s reputation as a top notch organiser… although those fullbacks did struggle here. Three goals came from crosses from Bowen’s side and two of those were finished off by players that Green shoulda been marking. They didn’t keep their back four flat enough, caught between supporting the wingers in possession and holding back in defence, and I still think a back three suits this team best. Moore, Erceg, and Stott.
Also trying not to worry too much that we barely looked like we could even threaten to score against this team, given the circumstances. The Ferns were at their best when Annalie Longo was able to get on the ball in that attacking third and safe to say we missed Betsy Hassett’s ability on the ball too. We did get a nice little cameo from Olivia Chance off the bench, giving half an hour of energy and a little bit of force too which suited nicely after we’d been pretty comfortably outmuscled most of the way. And, speaking of force, Hannah Wilkinson got twenty towards the end to mark her return from that ACL injury in double-quick time. As I’ve written before, this World Cup is still probably gonna be too soon for her to go ninety and I’m not sure she fully suits the way they’re playing… but twenty solid minutes off the bench at the end when we’re chasing a goal sounds perfect. Didn’t realise Meikayla Moore was such a longbow aficionado with those cross-field switches of play either, damn.
One thing that bodes quite well is that even if it wasn’t massively successful against a team like this, the Ferns did continue to show more intent to knock the ball around and build up possession. They have to be quick on the release when playing in that attacking transition they’re targeting but sometimes you also just have to put a foot on the ball and dish it around at the back, slow the game down and give your forwards a rest.
Against less intimidating teams that should be a bit of a weapon, especially if they can weave through the midfield and get their attacking players in some space… which is one sneaky reason why Ali Riley as a winger could be a go. She’s fast and she links up well, with the ability to pick out a cross. She’s also our best left back so this might depend on the formation. Keep in mind that CJ Bott’s been playing fantastic for her club as a left back too so there are options.
Unfortunately, you play the USA under these circumstances and there’s a limit to how much you can learn. Was the formation switch tailored to the opposition? Where do Stott, Bott, and Hassett fit into the starting eleven or do they? Are the mistakes at the back a matter of coming up against a ruthless team with nothing much to gain or should we be concerned there? One thing’s for sure is you don’t wanna be losing 5-0 this close out to a World Cup… but that was always a risk playing this game at this time. At least they’ll have a full strength squad from this point onwards.
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