The FIFA formalities are over, the bid’s been successful, Australia and Aotearoa will host the 2023 Women’s World Cup. Meaning that a Footy Ferns team that has never actually won a game at a World Cup in the past and which performed pretty disappointingly at the previous World Cup (understandable given the messy couple years that preceded it but still disappointing) will get three group stage games in which they’ll have sold-out home crowds spurring them on and as co-hosts they’ll be first seeds in whatever group they end up in too, instead of third or fourth seeds, which means slightly less formidable opponents as well.

Put simply we’ll never get a better chance to do well at a World Cup. Hence the pressure begins immediately to ensure we’ve got the best possible team out there to make it happen. Logically you’d figure you’d get several years to prepare for such a thing which would give a nation enough time to do some stadium maintenance and really prioritise the young players coming through but FIFA being FIFA they’ve only just awarded the hosts of the next World Cup three years out from the event itself. For comparison Qatar have had twelve years to prepare for the 2020 Men’s World Cup and are still struggling to do so without all their slaves dying on the job. Three years, that’s not a long time. But it does at least mean there’ll be heaps of continuity with the team we’ve already got.

The Ferns are generally a pretty consistent bunch at the best of times. They’ve been through a trio of coaches in the last couple years and no shortage of administrative drama either but the players have been a tight-knit group for ages now and there’s a generation of them who should be peaking riiiight around 2023... fingers crossed. There were 16 players that played at both the 2015 and 2019 World Cups out of squads of 23 players and that would have been 17 but for Meikayla Moore’s injury. Possibly 18 if Amber Hearn had been fit. Two thirds of the same crew basically, and two of those who didn’t back up were the reserve goalies. Here’s the 2019 squad...

It’s crazy that this was only a year ago and so much has changed since then. Specifically with the transfers but we’ll get to that in a sec. A few of these players have retired. Sarah Gregorius handed in her papers but was convinced to come back for a late-cameo at the Algarve Cup to get that 100th cap (scoring in a successful penalty shootout against Belgium)... the stats in that squad list are post-World Cup btw... and some are still wrong. Not sure what’s up with that. Anyway, Katie Duncan and Emma Kete both came out of retirement to play at the World Cup and have both returned to those golden shores over the horizons of their footy careers. Amber Hearn has also hung up the boots and same goes for Steph Skilton (although she’s young enough that she could feasibly make a comeback down the line).

But those players were mostly depth at that World Cup. Gregorius started all three games but probably wouldn’t have had Hannah Wilkinson been fully fit. The rest of the starting players at that tournament, they should all still be around in three years. At least a dozen of them are absolute locks. Here are the ages that the still-active players from last year’s WC squad will be on 1 July 2023:

• 35: Ali Riley

• 34: Nicole Stratford

• 33: Ria Percival, Abby Erceg

• 32: Annalie Longo, Betsy Hassett

• 31: Erin Nayler, Hannah Wilkinson

• 30: Rebekah Stott, Rosie White

• 29: Katie Bowen, Olivia Chance

• 28: CJ Bott

• 27>: Sarah Morton, Paige Satchell, Daisy Cleverley, Nadia Olla

That’s actually a very useful mix of ages, especially considering that the depth of the squad should be filled out by young players coming through. One of two of the players in that 2019 squad will still have to earn their spots, for example dunno if Nicole Stratford hangs in there or not to be honest (although she was only an injury replacement player at that World Cup) – not with Meikayla Moore (27 at WWC 2023) and Claudia Bunge (23 at WWC 2023) to consider too. Moore has been imperious at international and club level over the last 12-24 months (injury aside) while Bunge has made a very impressive start to her Ferns career and it’s surely only a matter of time until she’s playing professionally overseas. And let’s not sleep on Anna Leat either who during the last World Cup was on a break from the Ferns stuff while she focussed on her studies ahead of moving to Georgetown University in the States, she’ll be 22 at the next World Cup and should start putting the pressure on Nayler for the gloves around then.

Some other players who have come (back) into contention in the five games since the World Cup: Katie Rood, who was extremely unlucky to miss WWC2019 selection and who seems to have settled into a lovely role at Lewes in the English second tier where she’s playing regularly and scoring amazing goals, and Jana Radosavljevic, injured for WWC2019 (doubt she’d have made the cut but you never know) currently at second tier German club BVB Cloppenberg and offering a nice point of difference to most of our other attackers. We could dive into a bunch of other emerging talents but nah, best just to let things play out as they will. Suffice to say that there’s plenty of time for players to stake their claims – the U17 WWC crew who finished third in 2018 for example, they’ll all be around 21-22 years old in 2023, some cosmic timing right there.

Abby Erceg was asked about hosting the World Cup recently during some NWSL media spots and she said the usual stuff about how good it’ll be for the game and said she hopes to be around for it as long as the body holds up. Erceg’s one of the fittest players in the team right now so it’d be a shocker if it didn’t, injuries aside. Ria Percival is in a similar space. She’s just ticked over her 150th international cap in the Ferns’ last game and could well get to a double-ton the way she’s going. She’s also found a great home in Tottenham Hotspur, her childhood club, where she’s just started preseason for the next campaign. Like Erceg she’s in some of her best ever form and while many things can happen in three years it feels unimaginable that they won’t both be crucial Ferns members at the next Worldie.

Ali Riley’s in a different place. Slightly older, although more than fit enough to still be around in 2023, the concern at the moment is that her career has stalled as she’s sat on the bench for Chelsea and Bayern Munich and then didn’t even get that luxury at the Orlando Pride who had to pull out of the NWSL Challenge Cup. But a loan deal back to her old club FC Rosengård in Sweden sounds like a great way to get going again... although Riley’s case does present a valid point: it’s not enough just to keep playing, players have to keep playing well. And playing often. We’re not talking about making up the numbers here, we’re talking about winning games at a World Cup.

Which is why a few of these Fernies are in rather curious situations these days. The whole world of football is in a curious situation to be fair but gotta make the most of it. Ali Riley’s loan to Rosengård ticks off one of the main curiosities. Erin Nayler’s impending transfer to Reading in the English WSL does the same for another, it feels like the perfect time to be moving to that league and she joins an Australasian wave with a number of Matildas having also made moves to the WSL over the last year. Sam Kerr, Steph Catley, Lydia Williams, Hayley Raso, Caitlyn Foord, Chloe Logarzo, Mackenzie Arnold...that’s more than a coincidence. It’s a concerted strategy. It also has the effect of weakening the W-League which may now need to pivot how it does things without its top local stars and one of the effects is that a Wellington Phoenix team in the W-League makes so much sense that it might even happen by next season.

It also begs the question whether Rebekah Stott might be in line for something similar. Like most of those Aussie players she’s been dominating the W-League in recent years. She’d also been splitting the offseason for that comp first with a few years in the NWSL in the States and then in 2019 with Avaldsnes in Norway. That Norwegian season has started up again and kiwi keeper Vic Esson is amongst it, starting their first two games (a win and a draw), but Stotty, who stayed in Melbourne for lockdown and did a heap of promo world for the World Cup bid, is not. Dunno if she’s got anything in the works but she’s good enough to make that WSL jump too, no doubt about it.

Similarly Meikayla Moore is fresh off leading MSV Duisburg to safety in an enthralling relegation battle in Germany but she’s also announced that she’s leaving the club now with her contract expiring. Given her performances for both club and country you’d hope that means a step up to an even bigger club now. And Olivia Chance was released by Bristol City after playing a big role in keeping them in the WSL top flight. You never know with these things until after all the chips have fallen whether the player has chosen to leave or if it’s a financial decision by the club or what’s going on but Chance was one of the Ferns’ best at the World Cup despite coming back from a knee injury and she deserves another WSL club.

Speaking of new clubs, Hannah Wilkinson is getting started at hers after returning to Sweden following a goal-filled stint in Portugal with Sporting Lisbon. If any single player can alter the Ferns’ hopes more than the rest then it’s Wilkie. Always a physical presence and now the top scoring active player in the squad (one goal clear of Rosie White). If she can become a consistent goal threat for club and country then that’d be enormous.

Because a major part of the underachievement of the last World Cup sojourn wasn’t that the players weren’t good enough but that the timing wasn’t there for them. A coach with only a year to cram in a full four-year cycle. Two players coming off major knee injuries. Three more coming out of retirement. A handful without any affiliated club at the time. A starting calibre defender ruled out with injury on the eve of the tournament. Disproportionate struggles from those aforementioned points that affected the team’s expected goal-scorers, including the nation’s all-time top goal scorer who missed the tourney entirely. We should have done better than we did but the fact that we didn’t... well, the fates weren’t too kind to us. But we’ve not got three years to ensure that ain’t the case next time.

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