Running Down The Footy Ferns At The 2017 Cyprus Cup
The lead in to the tournament may have been dominated by Abby Erceg and when a legend retires you generally wanna send them off with the best possible results but the Football Ferns squad for the 2017 Cyprus Cup always suggested a firm eye towards the future.
There were three uncapped players in the 22-player squad, as well as another four with three or fewer caps. The established core of the team was still there with enormous experience, players like Erceg, Ria Percival, Ali Riley, Kirsty Yallop and Rosie White but clearly there was a focus on integrating the next generation of girls into the team. Look, you’ve gotta do it eventually or else one day you get a couple too many retirements and next thing it’s the under-23s running around out there, struggling out of their depth.
And the Cyprus Cup is a great opportunity for that. It’s a global invitational tournament, so it’s pretty competitive, but it’s also not a World Cup or Olympics so there’s nothing drastic at stake. As such Tony Readings was able to include a couple next-gen types, such as 15 year old goalie Anna Leat and 18 year old winger Paige Satchell, both of whom impressed in the NZA games against Thailand last year. With a bunch of games in a short period of time, the whole squad was gonna be tested and given squad strength has been a problem in the past for the Footy Ferns, that makes for some valuable opportunities.
Football Ferns 2-3 Scotland
NAYLER / STOTT, ERCEG, MOORE / PERCIVAL, LONGO, BOWEN, RILEY / WHITE, HEARN, PEREIRA
Beginning with this one. The Scots are ranked somewhere close to the kiwis so their lack of profile in the women’s game doesn’t really do them justice. They’re on a rise these days, recently qualifying for Euro 2017 and their first major tournament. As for the Fernies, they hadn’t played at all since the Olympics and a fair bit has happened since then, safe to say.
At the Olympics the frustration with the Ferns was that they couldn’t commit numbers forward against teams. When playing Colombia they got away with that by scoring one and holding out but the USA and France weren’t to be withstood. When you sit in and defend all game, it’s pretty hard to win. It makes sense to play pragmatically against stronger teams but at times it just felt like Tony Readings had these gals playing too negatively.
So it was really pleasing to see them lining up here in a 3-4-3 formation, a shape that allows them plenty of width without leaving them short at the back. It means a big burden on the wingbacks to traverse their way up and down the flanks but the Ferns, in Ali Riley and Ria Percival, have a couple of strong players in those positions. Plus the more they get forward, the more room they create for the front three which means lots of support for Hannah Wilkinson/Amber Hearn/Etc. up top – Wilko whose hold up play was wasted in Rio by how isolated she was.
Wilkinson didn’t start this game, instead they went with the pace of Jasmine Pereira as the Ferns looked to create a few overlaps. But the tournament started off pretty terribly. The defence were caught out by a strange bit of play in the ninth minute, a deep cross from the left flank was swung in and Christine Murray was able to get an outstretched foot to it ahead of Meikayla Moore which looped up off the crossbar and Jane Ross reacted quicker than Rebekah Stott to score.
But in the 20th minute the pace of Rosie White caught out the Scottish keeper to intercept a clearance (slack stuff from the GK) and she had the composure to slip it inside the near post to equalise. Lisa Evans had a chance to restore Scotland’s lead before HT only to smoke it over the bar while one-on-one with Erin Nayler.
At half-time the Ferns made two subs with Wilkinson replacing Pereira and C.J. Bott replacing Ria Percival. Unable to make the most of a few promising chances, the Ferns kept on going for the lead with Betsy Hassett coming on for Annalie Longo in the 71st minute after Anna Green had come on at the back a few mins earlier, subbing in for Moore. The kiwis were winning a lot of possession but not taking advantage and in the end it was a Scottish sub that made the difference. 18 year old Erin Cuthbert came on and after holding off Erceg on the edge of the box she slammed in a superb volley in the 83rd minute. Then, pressing for an equaliser, Bott lost the ball on half-way and the Scots broke down our right side. Stotty couldn’t stop the cross and Kim Little made it two goals in three minutes for Scotland.
Amber Hearn pulled one back in the second minute of injury time with a smart header from Bott’s cross but it was too late to effect the game. A 3-2 defeat in what was a winnable game there.
Ali Riley (via NZF): “We are always disappointed with a loss, but we are trying a new formation which created a lot of opportunities to get our fast players in behind. There were definitely some opportunities for us to build off but we were a bit disorganised with that new formation and they punished us when we were out of position.”
Football Ferns 0-3 Austria
NAYLER / GREEN, STOTT, MOORE / PERCIVAL, YALLOP, BOWEN, RILEY / HEARN, WILKINSON, LONGO
The way this tournament goes, you don’t progress to semis or anything. Instead you win the group and go straight into the final so having lost to Scotland the Ferns needed to win their next two to have any chance at that. But at the same time they were also playing after only a single day’s rest coming off of a game that pushed them for the entire 90 minutes. Oh and a lot of these players are out of season and the squad was only together a couple days before the tournament.
Which made sense for a few changes and while it was a shock that Abby Erceg was left on the bench, it’s also kind of inevitable what with her impending retirement and all (plus she was carrying a knock). Erceg has been so crucial to this team’s defence and they’re about to enter a world without her calming silhouette there at the back. Gotta find an alternative and Anna Green was given the start, the Ferns keeping that same formation. Ali Riley was, very deservedly, given the captain’s armband.
We also saw a couple switches up front with Wilkinson and Kirsty Yallop coming into the team for White and Pereira. Yallop’s inclusion meaning that Annalie Longo could play in the front three. It’s hard to know what to make of the changes under the circumstances – what’s tactical and what’s fitness based – but it clearly didn’t work as the Ferns were thoroughly beaten by a very good Austrian side.
They were 1-0 down thanks to Nicole Billa in the 19th minute and things didn’t get any better when Hannah Wilkinson went off only 40 minutes into things, Rosie White going in, and Ria Percival had to be subbed off at the break with injury, Jasmine Pereira coming on to play wingback. Austria then scored soon after the second half commenced through Verena Aschauer and all that was left to do was to give a bit of experience to some players who’d earned it.
Paige Satchell got a run for the last 22 minutes, as did Martine Puketapu for a couple mins on debut. The biggest story was probably Anna Leat playing the last 15 minutes in goal, shout out to the 15 year old on finding something way better to do than sit through school. Betsy Hassett also came on immediately after the second goal (why didn’t she start either of the first two games?). In the end, Jasmine Eder put one past Leat only a couple minutes after she went on and that was how it finished.
Football Ferns 0-2 Korea Republic
NAYLER / BOWEN, STOTT, MOORE / PERCIVAL, LONGO, HASSETT, RILEY / HEARN, WILKINSON, WHITE
Which meant that the Ferns were playing for placements only when they met Korea in their final group game. After drawing 0-0 with Austria, the South Koreans then beat Scotland 2-0 so they were playing for top spot and a place in the final. Big difference in motivation there.
To be fair it was probably their best performance of the group stage, at least Tony Readings said as much. Against the best team they’d face in Cyprus, the Ferns kept things level for the whole first half, defending well and getting the ball into dangerous areas a couple times as well. From the Olympics we already know they can defend deep and keep a game tight, the real development will be in learning to take the few chances they’re spared at the other end and that’s something they still didn’t manage here.
Korea didn’t concede a goal in the whole group stage. They’re a team full of quality. They’d eventually fall to Switzerland in the tournament final but keeping them out like the Ferns did was a big positive. Problem was they couldn’t repeat the dose in the back half and again they leaked a second within two minutes of conceding one. Kang Yumi and Ji So-yeon decided this contest between the 50-52 minutes.
Erceg missed another one, apparently down to injury which is a shame to see her international career end like that. Well, it was a shame to see it end at all given certain circumstances but whatever, an argument for another day. Katie Duncan was also out for the whole tourney with injury and Sarah Gregorius retired a few months back so this was a squad being a little stretched from the start. Or you could look at it like there were places to be won.
Moving forward, this is probably something close to a 100% strength starting XI so it’s cool to see they stayed competitive even with most of them playing their third game in seven days. Just gotta cut out the little errors and maybe put a few goals away. That front three is super exciting though. Amber Hearn is the veteran there with 53 international goals but she’s joined by a 23 year old in White and a 24 year old in Wilkinson. Pace from one, power from the other. Hearn mixing a bit of both. Yes please.
And the subs all took a leaning towards youth too. Bott got another go out wide, her fifth cap, while Puketapu (based at Colorado Uni) got a bit longer in her second cap. Aimee Phillips took her first bow of the Cyprus Cup in midfield as did Daisy Cleverley while Jasmine Pereira also made an appearance.
Despite losing all three games, the competition structure was such that they got themselves in the playoff for 9/10, rather than the 11/12 playoff. Group C was kinda more of an invitational one so the Ferns, having been placed in Group B, got a bit of precedence there and with a better goal difference than Group A’s Italy, they had the chance to finish things on a high against Hungary (who beat the Czech Republic 2-1 in their last game to finish ahead of them – the Czechs being the official host nation despite the tournament being held in Cyprus, which is a country a little too small to field a team that’d be competitive with the rest of them).
Football Ferns 3-1 Hungary
NAYLER / DUNCAN, STOTT, MOORE / PERCIVAL, BOWEN, CLEVERLEY, GREEN / WHITE, HEARN, PEREIRA
With the pressure off now, the Ferns saved their best game for last. The Hungarians may have won that Czech Rep game but they were held scoreless by Ireland in one game and beaten 2-0 by Wales in the other. The Ferns came out and pretty much dominated from start to finish.
Again they were at the mercy of their own finishing as chances came and went without being traded in for goals and were made to pay when Hungary took an unexpected 25th minute lead thanks to Loretta Nemeth. Some reckless defending there, apparently.
Eventually they got back into the game with Jasmine Pereira’s first international goal. Great moment there, Rosie White then doubled the lead in the 50th minute and she then scored again in injury time to make it 3-1. Her third goal of the cup also means that she finished as the leading scorer. Not bad at all there.
Part of the strong finish was being able to bring on players like Riley and Longo off the bench, keeping the foot on the gas right until the end. Anna Leat also played the second half in goal and Puketapu got twenty minutes up front.
Tony Readings (via NZF): “We are going to have that when we have new, younger players coming in and they are learning the ropes of how to win games at this level. It was good to win today and we would have liked to have won more but we have had the opportunity to look at a lot more players and different formations which is something we haven’t been able to do.”
A game like that kind of shows where the Footy Ferns are in the world. They’re good enough to put away a certain level of team but can’t always maintain that against better sides and it’s a tough thing to make that step when games against those teams are hard to find and the team is reliant on a few main players. This tournament should have done plenty for that second level of talent, experience gained and all that, so the trick now is to sustain that. Not easily done when a lot of them are returning to amateur clubs in NZ.
Anyway, they’re still early in the development cycle. The next World Cup isn’t until 2019 in France. You’d have to think that most of these players will still be around then and that means a couple more years to fill out the back end of the squad, maybe discover a superstar or something. Overall the Cyprus Cup has to be looked at as a disappointment given the expectations that’ll be on this team in France 2019 – the same expectations as at the last World Cup and the Rio Games as well, which apparently are: winning medals, but should really be: get out of the group and maybe win a knockout game – and losing three straight games doesn’t exactly achieve that. But they finished on a strong note and that counts for plenty.