The Footy Ferns Are Coming Home and the All Whites Are Going to India, Happy Days
New Zealand Football did that thing the other day where they tease an upcoming announcement. Check back with us at 8pm tonight and we’ll tell you a secret! It’s the social media equivalent of ‘can’t talk now, meet me tonight behind the watertower, this is serious!’ Not sure why they waited until 8pm to make the announcement, I guess the telly news crews and drive radio folks weren’t interested?
Slightly counterproductive… but the announcement itself was top notch. The Football Ferns are coming home! They’re gonna play Japan in Wellington on 10 June, a rare dip into local waters and hopefully resounding proof of how far this team has come over the last few years.
This is great news. The Fernies haven’t played in Aotearoa since they lost 3-2 to Australia in Auckland (and that was at Bill McKinlay Park, which is hardly a major stadium). That was more than three years ago and they’ve played 31 times since then, including a World Cup and an Olympic tournament. There was supposed to be an Olympic qualifier against Papua New Guinea at North Harbour since then but the Ferns won 7-1 in the away leg and then visa issues meant the return was cancelled. As for the Ferns playing in Wellington? Hasn’t happened since 1991.
And it’s a good game too! Japan are ranked in the top dozen teams in the world and while rankings, once again for the people in the back, are completely stupid, flawed and irrelevant… Japan made the final of the last World Cup and they won the whole damn thing in 2011. They didn’t qualify for the Olympics in 2016 but won silver in the London Games. They recently toppled Australia again to win the 2018 Asian Cup.
Put simply, this is a legit team. A much better team than the Ferns if we’re being honest about it. But for the kiwi side, this is an opportunity to play with the home advantage for once. Recent results haven’t quite lived up to the excitement around this team, as so many more players find homes in the expanding world of women’s professional football, but we’re also in the early days of Andreas Heraf’s reign and with the World Cup coming up in France next year, this is where the preparation begins. Setting the tone against one of the world’s best sounds like a decent place to start getting serious.
Plus, like, this is just a cool game to see happen. It’s a chance to reinforce a growing connection with the football folk of Aotearoa and it’s also a massive boost for the players, who you may recall haven’t always been treated as well as they should have been by the national body. Getting to play at home in front of a local crowd, with family and friends in attendance, is always a highlight for any player and should be a great reward for the swamps the Ferns have had to drag themselves through in the past.
Fingers crossed there’s a massive crowd in Wellywood. Not just a Phoenix crowd but a 2018 Warriors crowd. Even, dare I say it… a rugby sized crowd. It’s 3pm on a Sunday arvo, people, you’ve got nothing to do but take a pew. (And for us poor jokers who don’t live in Wellington, it’ll be live on Sky telly which is an okay backup).
This comes less than two weeks after reports out of India claim that the All Whites are off to take part in a four-team tournament in Mumbai in early June, alongside Chinese Taipei and an African team that was supposed to be South Africa but that's not been confirmed yet. The inaugural Intercontinental Cup. Each team plays each other once and then the top two play in final, which would mean at least three games for the kiwi fellas, with teams supposedly agreeing to all send their top sides (although it’s not in the FIFA window so some of those MLS players might not make it).
Again, this is quality stuff. Like the Fernies, the All Whites are in the nascent stages of new management and, even more than the lasses, the lads need these games. Their last manager was a pretty hands-on fella when it came to the nitty gritty so the more time Fritz Schmid gets to work with his team the better – he’s not painting on an empty canvas here. But the conflict there is that games are expensive to make happen. Even away games include travel costs and accommodation and all that. NZF have managed to pick up the tab for Japan’s women’s team but piggybacking off an ambitious Indian football association is a nice compromise for their other senior team.
India is a massively passionate sporting nation and you only have to watch about fifteen seconds of the IPL to know that’s true. Football isn’t exactly what they’re known for but in a country with a billion people you can trust me that there’s a huge football culture hidden in there behind the cricket (and the hockey and the kabbadi). The Premier League gets enormous viewership in India. There have been more than a few attempts to get an IPL-rival footy league going (Ricki Herbert coached in the Indian Super League for a bit). There is money there to spend.
The idea is that this tournament will help India prepare for next year’s Asian Cup, having qualified this time after missing out in 2015. Good for them, they’ve been getting some good results lately (albeit against dead average teams). For the All Whites it’s a chance to play multiple games with the team in camp together and hopefully get some positive results against teams that they’re more than capable of beating.
Remember that Anthony Hudson only ever won one game against a non-Oceania team. Schmiddy didn’t get the best out of an experimental side against Canada first up but there should be some points on the board here. India are beatable. Chinese Taipei even more so - there’s actually some history there, as back in the 80s Chinese Taipei had to try qualify for World Cups through Oceania because of their political situation. Israel too, though Israel were pretty good then while CT mostly just got thrashed. South Africa are on a similar level to New Zealand, maybe a little better (and definitely with a lot more depth). NZF’s release didn’t specify South Africa but they also took two weeks to confirm their own involvement after the initial Indian press release so they’re probably just giving them some space.
The tournament itself is a little silly but it’s a concept that’s going to become a lot more common in the coming years as qualifying tournaments become more and more predictable, particularly with the World Cup expanding, and national teams look to bring more relevance to friendly games. It’s already a conceit that’s prevalent amongst pre-season club games and women’s internationals (probably because Commercial America’s way more influential in those two areas of footy).
There’s bound to be a few things to discuss about playing potentially four games in ten days in the heat and humidity in Mumbai (not to mention the dreaded Delhi Belly), although that heat’s something they’ve had some experience with at many an Oceania Nations Cup. Plus, you know, Qatar 2022 isn’t exactly going to have an icy chill to it either.
Mostly the All Whites just need to play games, regardless of the quality of opposition and regardless of if a few top players are missing (Reid won’t be fit, all MLS dudes are doubtful, Wood & Thomas might be hard sells). Believe it or not, we’re the lowest ranked team of this quartet. Rankings are stupid, flawed and irrelevant (who was it who said that…?) but it’d still be nice to experience some wins beyond the reaches of the Pacific Ocean.
Tell you what, from the way the NZFers were talking last year you’d be forgiven for thinking we’d be struggling to get any games at all this year if the All Whites missed the World Cup yet not only are they getting a proper handful of them but the Football Ferns even get a home game and with it an opportunity to pack the stands and prove they deserve a whole heap more. A little weird to be feeling this positive about the state of our two national football teams but, damn, here we are.
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