Jitka Klimková Is The New Football Ferns Manager
The Football Ferns have a new manager. Jitka Klimková was announced last week as the successor to Tom Sermanni and given a hefty six year contract that’ll take her through the co-hosted 2023 World Cup right up until the next one in 2027 with an Olympics in between. Klimková is a 47-year-old Czech native who previously took charge of the NZ U17s for a couple years from 2013-2014, as well as being an assistant to the U20s at the same time. Prior to that she’d won a W-League title (and Coach of the Year honours) with Canberra United and since then she’s been working in the USA system.
Meaning that not only does Klimková have prior experience of working in Aotearoa with kiwi players but she also has connections to the power-bases of Europe and America. Seems like a handy state of affairs. Her time in the USA system wasn’t as flash as it could have been, she coached the U19s for a couple years and then moved up to the U20s where she led them to a group stage exit at the 2018 U20 World Cup. That was their worst ever performance at the tournament although the team had already been dipping before that – USA aren’t as dominant at U20 level as they are at senior level probably largely to do with how their system works. U20 Americans are playing for college teams rather than pro teams.
But still, that’s a tidy resume that Klimková brings to the team. Not a lot of senior football, granted. She did have success with Canberra United a decade back but most of her work has come with youth teams. That’s an interesting one when you consider how she’s taking over a Ferns team with seven current centurions in the ranks, a very experienced team that has kept a consistent core for quite a few years now. A core which will be looking at the 2023 World Cup as the pinnacle of their international careers – perhaps even a swansong for a couple of them.
The Fernies have never won a World Cup game before, let alone made the knockouts, yet thanks to the unique chance to co-host the next World Cup they’re about to get the best draw they will ever be blessed with at a major tournament. Expectations will never be higher for a Footy Ferns manager and she’s got less than two years to figure out how to make that happen. There’s no developmental margin for error here like with youth football. Results are all that matter... results being the one thing that the team has never been able to consistently deliver on that stage.
Having said that, Klimková is clearly motivated. She’s planning on moving to Auckland at the soonest feasible time which Tom Sermanni never did. In fairness to Sermanni he only lived across the ditch in Aussie and that wouldn’t have been a hassle at all were it not for the whole pandemic scenario which nobody could have anticipated. Sermanni’s time in charge is a good indication of the challenge that Klimková faces here. He was super experienced, widely respected, and generally beloved. Yet in two major tournaments he suffered six defeats from six and ended his tenure with only a lone draw to go with 11 defeats in his final dozen games in charge. 5 goals scored and 27 conceded in those 12 games.
However it’s hard to find much blame for him in all that. Maybe a few tactical tweaks may have helped, he did tend to bounce between back threes and back fours a liiiittle too often to suggest he was fully confident in either. But mostly he was doomed by horrific preparations for both tournaments. He took over with the team in turmoil, needing to patch things up and fit an entire World Cup cycle into one year, then if there was any momentum to be taken from that tournament into the Olympics then it was lost amidst the mess of the pandemic. The Ferns hit up the Tokyo having played nothing but a closed-door friendly (a 3-0 loss to Great Britain) a few days before the tournament. It had been 16 months since their previous game.
Klimková has had to wait a long time for a senior international gig. Back when Andreas Heraf was exorcised from the job it was reported that there was a five-person shortlist for his successor. Gareth Turnbull, Aaron McFarland, Tom Sermanni, an unnamed Frenchwoman, and Jitka Klimková were the five and obviously Tom Sermanni got the nod. Then when Alen Stajcic was booted from the Matildas, Klimková’s was a name mentioned in relation to that gig too. More of an outsider candidate in that case with Tony Gustavsson eventually hired (whose time in the USA system overlapped with Klimková). Goes to show she’s been putting her name in the hat. Now finally it’s been drawn out.
It also helps that JK has the highest coaching qualifications, was a full international herself as a player, plus she’s never been the subject of an independent workplace review into bullying. The NZ U17 World Cup side that she took charge of in 2014, which drew with Paraguay in their first game before losing 3-0 to both Japan and Spain, didn’t actually have too many future internationals in its ranks. There aren’t even that many there who are still playing National League. But it did include the likes of Daisy Cleverley, Paige Satchell, and Liz Anton who were all at the 2021 Olympics. Also she was an assistant coach with the 2014 U20s (working with head coach Aaron McFarland) which made it out of their group thanks to wins over Paraguay and Costa Rica. That squad included CJ Bott, Meikayla Moore, Katie Bowen, Emma Rolston, plus Cleverley again.
Interesting that in reading a few different articles from different times in JK’s career, the word ‘passionate’ is one that keeps recurring. Always a handy trait. It’s also gonna take plenty of tactical brains to figure out a way to get the Ferns over the hump of being too good for their region but not good enough for the wider world though. This is a team that qualifies with absolute ease for big tournaments only to come up against teams they’re unprepared to face thanks to the marginal opportunities they get to face equally-matched opposition.
Tony Readings’ time in charge ran its course because the team couldn’t do that. Andreas Heraf never even wanted to try. Tom Sermanni... well we did see some fascinating hints under him. At the Olympics you could see a willingness to build things up in possession which hasn’t often been there at major tourneys. There was a belief and a determination to play some footy. Unfortunately, a) it was only half-hatched because of the lack of preparation, and b) it was hampered by the fact that we just don’t really have any world class attackers at the moment. The truly world class players that the Fernies have are all defenders/defensive midfielders.
Jitka Klimková is probably the best of all those candidates to figure out a solution there but of course only time will tell. Nothing anyone can say now is anything other than a guess. It takes a backlog of games before those patterns become clear. Granted, she should get plenty of those having been given a six year contract. Not sure why there’s the need for such a long appointment right off the bat like that. Part of the reason Tom Sermanni left was that NZF wanted to go long term with the next appointment and that was fine. Sermanni is in his mid-60s and his appointment was never gonna be that. He was there to pick up the pieces after the Heraf debacle and get the train back on the tracks among other metaphors. Six years for his successor though? Six years before she’s even taken a single training session?
The word from the CEO is that they wanted that stability after Klimková became the fourth coach in a short space of time. Except the only reason there were four coaches in a short space of time was that they botched the Heraf appointment. Tony Readings had been there for six years plus another three before that as an assistant. No dramas there. Tom Sermanni came in for reasons already discussed with it only ever likely to be for a few short years (he signed for nine months initially, extended through til the Olympics, then extended again when the Olympics were delayed). It was only a bad appointment in between that caused the upheaval. So the antidote to that, apparently, is to commit even harder to the next appointment without even a peek at the evidence?
Klimková may well be great and earn those six years. She may well have been extended anyway, probably would’ve been. At the very least there’s no way conceivable she can be as bad as Heraf. It’s just a wonky bit of logic. Seems like the way to do it would be a three-year deal ‘til the next Olympics but an extension well before that if things are going well. Not that it really matters/makes a meaningful difference.
We didn’t get a look at a shortlist this time. No other candidates got their names out there that we know of. Nothing played out in the media. Hence it’s hard to say how attractive the New Zealand women’s coaching job was or what calibre of candidates NZF got to sift through. On the one hand there’s the golden chalice of the 2023 World Cup, on the other hand there’s a national body with limited funds for a team that plays limited games with players spread out all over the world and (up until very soon, fingers crossed) not a single professional club in the country. As well as a tiresome history of not being able to peak at the big tournaments which is probably a culmination of the previous sentence.
But all things considered... they’ve snapped up someone who ticks as many boxes as possible. Someone we can hopefully trust to guide us through a pivotal time for the national team. Haere mai to Jitka Klimková. Now lets get some friendly games organised.
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