If Abby Erceg is a household name in Aotearoa then it’s because of her role as a catalyst in exposing the inequality in New Zealand Football’s treatment of our women’s national team. Her retirement in February 2017 put a spotlight on the unreasonable expectations placed upon local amateur players and helped bring about positive change with the Football Ferns Development Programme and the new collective bargaining agreement while her brief return and then swift re-retirement earlier this year was one of the first major clues that all was not right in Andreas Heraf’s team.

If Abby Erceg is a household name in Aotearoa then it’s not because of her club career and that’s a shame. Erceg is the most-capped Football Fern in history and an undisputed Ferns legend whether or not she ever pulls on that jersey again. She’s a principled and courageous person who has stood up for her own values in the face of institutionalised pressure, particularly in a country which doesn’t tend to react well to upstarts (you know it’s true, we’re tall poppy cutters here in NZ). Those are established facts about Abby Erceg and two valid reasons why she’s a hero to a generation of footy players, especially women.

But it’s only two-thirds of the legend of Abby Erceg. This article is about the last 33%.

That right there is Abby Erceg and her North Carolina Courage teammates celebrating the NWSL championship after beating Portland Thorns 3-0 in the grand final this week. The two teams had met in the decider last year too but Portland won 1-0 on that occasion. A year earlier the Western New York Flash (the team that would become the NC Courage when it relocated at the end of that season) beat Portland 4-3 after extra time in the semi-final and went on to win the championship on penalties over Washington Spirit.

Abby Erceg was captain of that 2016 WNY Flash squad. She’s also captain of this 2018 NC Courage squad. Twice in three years she’s lifted the championship trophy as the captain of the winning team. The last two years she’s also lifted the NWSL Shield for the team that finishes first at the end of the regular season. The 2016 title was a bit of a whirlwind one, that epic semi-final seeing the Flash beat the Shield-winning Thorns after finishing fourth, but the following two years they’ve been the best team out. It was an upset of vengeful quantities that earned the Thorns the 2017 title however the Courage bounced back as strong as it’s possible to bounce back this year.

It wasn’t only the comprehensive 3-0 win in the final over their closest rivals, a game played before a largely Portland-oriented crowd too (not surprisingly given it was played in Portland). Nor was it the grinding 2-0 win in the semi over a gifted attacking team in the Chicago Red Stars. Back to back clean sheets was a perfect way to end it for a defender like Abby Erceg but that finals run was only the polish on top. Nah mate, to get the full picture you’ve gotta look at the entire year, a season of damn near perfection.

To put it simply, the 2018 North Carolina Courage team was the greatest the National Women’s Soccer League in America has ever witnessed. Abby Erceg captained this team to superiority from start to finish. Defensively they were superb from the very start but it took a couple months before they found their feet going forwards. Despite four straight wins to start things, three of those four games were 1-0 scorelines. Yet the longer things went, the more the goals began to flow. There were only two games all year in which they were held without a goal. Both of those were against the Utah Royals and one of those would prove to be their only defeat of the campaign – going down 1-0 at home in game 13. Before that they were 12 games unbeaten, since then they’re 13 games unbeaten.

Only one defeat in 24 games plus a couple playoffs. A new NWSL record. The Courage’s 57 points this season was also a new NWSL record, as NCC finished 15 points ahead of second place Portland. With only 17 goals conceded they broke that record too while those early season goal struggles were quickly forgotten as they stormed through to score 53 of them all up, also a new NWSL record. Including playoffs they kept 13 clean sheets in 26 games, only conceding in exactly half of them.

Being a central defender it took a few years for Abby Erceg to start getting the individual plaudits to match the team ones but in 2017 she became the first kiwi player to make a NWSL Team of the Year when she was picked for the Second XI. This year she took that to the extreme. Abby was the best player in the best defence in the league. She played every single minute of every single game and dominated the stats therein. She would’ve been one of the first names on the list as the 2018 Team of the Year was announced, Abby Erceg making the First XI.

This is what the NWSL website had to say about her inclusion:

“North Carolina Courage defender Abby Erceg played every minute (2,160) in 2018, one of five players to do so, as the Courage allowed the fewest goals in the league and earned 11 clean sheets. She made 110 clearances (2nd in the NWSL), 21 blocks (4th), 50 interceptions and 19 tackles won. She won 116 duels, including 81 aerial duels, which ranked 5th in the league. She held an 81.9% passing accuracy (1047 passes) and added two goals and two assists.”

Erceg was selected in the NWSL Team of the Month for May. She was also selected for the Team of the Month in June, July and August. Four straight months. Only the league MVP Lindsey Horan had more ToM inclusions (five), while only three other players can match her total: Utah’s Becky Sauerbrunn and teammates Crystal Dunn and McCall Zerboni.

Abby Erceg was also shortlisted for the NWSL Defender of the Year award and would seem to be a frontrunner when that one’s announced shortly. Her coach, Paul Riley, sure thinks so (see below). She’s already won both the Defender of the Year and the Leadership Award for the Courage at their own club awards.

It can be tricky to put all this into global context because football in the USA is a very different beast to everywhere else. The MLS seems to almost have its own unique language for talking about the game and that credibility gap isn’t helped by guys like Wayne Rooney and Zlatan Ibrahimovic going from the fringes of Premier League squads to absolutely shredding it up in America. Health and regular playing opportunities help, and we all know class is permanent, but still.

However the women’s side of things in America is incredibly strong. Their national team is always amongst the best in the world and the NWSL stands alongside the WSL in England, the Frauen Bundesliga in Germany, Division 1 Féminine in France, etc. In fact the North Carolina Courage hosted a few of those European Champions League standard clubs in their preseason (which was midseason for NCC) as part of the International Champions Cup… and they won the whole damn thing. Yet another bit of silverware, albeit a non-competitive trophy. That’s hardly perfect evidence and it’d be something else to see them beat mid-season Manchester City or Olympique Lyonnais over in Europe but it’s proof enough that they’re right up there.

Regardless, what Abby Erceg is achieving, especially what she has achieved in 2018, is unprecedented amongst New Zealand footballers. The closest comparison might be Ryan Nelsen’s time with DC United. She’s quite literally one of the finest central defenders on the planet right now and she doesn’t need to be eligible for the national team for that to be recognised and admired. Either way she’s representing Aotearoa in everything she does. You know what her nickname is in the Courage squad? Kiwi. Shout out to Abby Erceg, the absolute legend.

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