Seven months out from a World Cup, this is not really the time you want to be settling into coaching changes. It’s when you want to be smoothly refining your team for maximum potential on the game’s biggest stage... but then the Football Ferns have not exactly been a model of smoothness this past year.

The way the players of the Footy Ferns dealt with the Andreas Heraf thing was pretty remarkable. New Zealand Football’s gagging clause meant nobody got to chat with the media about things, limiting an ability (and a basic human right) to speak out, but no dramas we’ll just file our complaints with the player’s union and take them down via the bureaucratic route. Fast forward to the current day and Andreas Heraf is gone. Andy Martin is gone. Deryck Shaw is gone. I’m not sure that Shaw was anywhere near as much a villain as the other two but he oversaw a ridiculously complacent Executive Committee that allowed these jokers to rule over football in Aotearoa with a callous capitalistic priority and a pitiful egocentric insecurity, so no complaints that he’s gone.

Change is coming now because a dozen of the country’s best female footballers refused to deal with unacceptable conditions, leading to an investigation which publically shredded the inner workings of NZF. It was a revolution. A demonstration of players standing up for players and reminding those who make the decisions where their priorities ought to be, from the grassroots all the way to the top. It’s the sport that matters. The sport and the communities that play, support and adore it. Things won’t all get fixed at once but at least we’re moving in the right direction. NZF formally apologised to the Ferns at their training camp this week, a welcome step that allows us to symbolically begin a new chapter.

And so here we are. Tom Sermanni has completed his first training camp with the Ferns ahead of the impending Oceania Nations Cup, with World Cup qualification on the line, and the focus is thankfully back on the football again. But that focus comes with its own questions. Regardless of how we got here, Tom Sermanni is taking over a squad which has tended to underperform at these major tournaments in recent years. It was that reason why Andreas Heraf’s hard-edged approach was greenlit (despite having zero relevant experience coaching women’s football and with apparently no respect for the existing culture in the team – like, okay you wanna do things tough and you wanna do things the European way… but if the team isn’t used to that then you can’t just moan they didn’t adapt to you, this is international footy and you don’t just get unlimited funds to sign new players, you make do with what you’ve got).

The problem is we don’t know how much damage Heraf did to this side’s existing structures, which a peacetime general like Tom Sermanni is going to need to rely upon with only seven months to work in, because they sure didn’t look too bloody good under Heraf’s guidance. In three games as the full-time gaffer, Heraf’s team lost all three times, scoring once and conceding seven. Even before that the team had two wins from eleven games since the last Olympics (11 goals scored, five coming in one 5-0 win over Thailand, and 23 conceded). Sermanni’s got to find a way to overcome the slide they were already on as well as fixing any lingering effects of the disastrous first attempt to fix that slide. Good luck with that, champ.

Getting to the whole point of this article now, the aim for Aotearoa is always to make the second stage of any FIFA tournament. Only once has it happened previously: the 2012 Olympics where one win was enough to advance. We’ve never even won a game at the World Cup before (in twelve games across four tournaments - 1991, 2007, 2011 and 2015). That’s a lot of lingering history to overcome but you’ve gotta try, always gotta keep trying.

Because this team is far from incapable of getting it done. In the past there have been tough draws and tactical mishaps. The last World Cup was the latter as the team lost narrowly to Netherlands, couldn’t find a winner in a scoreless draw against hosts Canada and then drew 2-2 with China in a feisty contest. The last Olympics were the former as a 1-0 win over Colombia was bookended by defeats to excellent USA and France sides. A little bit more luck or a little bit more clinical finishing and it could have been mission accomplished.

The Ferns, since those Olympics, have not been playing like a team capable of making the knockouts at the World Cup. Lots of crap results but maybe that’s not a fair reflection of where the team is at. For one thing, it’s worth mentioning that Scotland, Japan and Thailand have all qualified for the 2019 World Cup, which puts some of that recent frustration into sharper perspective. Teams all around the world are making huge strides but the Ferns are amongst them, this could be their strongest ever squad that they send to the World Cup (assuming they don’t bugger up the qualifying next week). There are so many players who have stepped up to professional footy since the Olympics. It’s even starting to sound likely that Abby Erceg will return before the World Cup. By all accounts the squad have those positive vibes back flowing again. Combine all that and Tom Sermanni’s guiding hand might be enough.

A lot also depends on the draw because another roll of the ping pong balls that throws up something like France and USA would be a knife in the side. The draw itself is conducted early morning on December 9 NZT, the day after the next FIFA Rankings are released and those rankings are the basis for the seedings. Somehow New Zealand is still ranked 20th and have been for all three rankings this year despite not winning a game since last November. I’m always belittling the stupid rankings system but it’s really worked out in our favour here.

With every confederation except Africa (three spots) and Oceania (one spot) having completed qualifying already, if the rankings don’t change too much then Aotearoa should get into the third tier of seeding. Thailand (28), Argentina (37), Chile (39) and Jamaica (64) have already qualified and no African team is currently ranked higher than 38. Surely out of reach of 20th, which would ensure NZ avoids the bottom six and gets a healthier draw as a result.

As it stands, that means playing one of: France, USA, Germany, England, Canada or Australia. It also means playing one of: Japan, Brazil, Sweden, Netherlands, Spain or Norway. And then one of the lowest ranked teams from the previous paragraph. Things could always change drastically with the next rankings, who even knows how those silly things work, but that’s an indication of what’s likely to happen.

Is that gonna make for a group that’s escapable? I mean, a third seed would give them at least one winnable game and considering the four best third-placed teams (from the six groups) also advance to the knockouts… that’s do-able. It’s do-able as long as Tom Sermanni can be the calming presence he’s advertised as, while also bringing out a ruthless tactical edge to the team. It’s do-able as long as a fresh start from 2018’s dramas is possible. It’s do-able if the draw works out nicely and if injuries don’t ruin things. Nobody said it’d be easy but it’s possible and that’s where we are right now.

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