It was hard not to get caught up in the emotions of that legendary Football Ferns victory. All you had to do was peek at Ali Riley after the final whistle, eyes all watery, embraced by a beaming Vic Esson, leaning her head back and roaring into the night sky: “We did it!”

Ali Riley is at her fifth World Cup. From thrashings to late defeats to battling draws she’d experienced pretty much every type of game except for a winning game. Her thirteenth World Cup appearance was the lucky one, just as it was for Ria Percival (despite missing a penalty). That quest spans the distance between 2007 when Riley was a teenager with fewer than 10 caps to 2023 when she’s the oldest player in the squad with more than 150 caps. She has spent an entire football career chasing this dream and she finally achieved it. What an incredible feeling that must have been.

But beneath the emotional surface there were depths of tactical fascination to that game which made that outcome possible. The Football Ferns didn’t topple Norway based on pure vibes... although those did help (shout out to the record crowd in attendance – shout out to all the crowds so far, Aotearoa’s been buzzing). Katie Bowen mentioned it more recently, just how much the huge home crowd helped them get over the finish line with the lead in tact – this being a team that has lost some late heartbreakers over the years.

However it’d be doing a massive disservice to a magnificent performance from both players and also coaching staff to overlook the details of how they got this win. So that’s what this piece is all about. Some of these ideas were touched upon in the original write-up, others were saved specifically for this bonus yarn. Here are a few aspects of how the Football Ferns orchestrated the most significant win in their history.

THE GOAL

Honestly, just leave this on repeat for all time. The pure aesthetics of that goal. It was magical, the way they progressed the entire length of the park so deliberately yet so smoothly. Goal kick to goal. It took eleven seconds and six touches from five different players.

If you rewind just before that clip begins, NZ had a goal kick after Frida Maanum had only managed to glance at a header from a deep cross. Early second half intent from Norway following their awful showing in the first 45... yet things were about to get a whole lot worse for them. It was actually Vic Esson who placed the ball for the goal kick...

She had her centre-backs relatively close with Norway committing two forwards on the edge of the penalty area to match up with those CBs in case of a potential short take. But as Esson made a few deliberate steps backwards seemingly to give herself a run-up to strike the thing, Katie Bowen instead rushed across and whipped it over to CJ Bott on the wing.

Norway did have their left winger hanging close to Bott but the ball from Bowen was spot on perfect no flaws one hundred percent accurate. Bott was able to nudge a square-ish pass to Indi Riley with her first touch and then Riley had just enough time to allow that ball to roll over towards her open side, then came a first time ball through towards Jacqui Hand who was already in motion. Bott was also overlapping although nobody picked her up. Hand took one touch on the sprint and then her second was a pinpoint cross towards Hannah Wilkinson who’d gotten free of any defensive coverage. Bang. Get in. Goal. Hannah Wilkinson has already painted a mural on the side of Eden Park. Next thing she’ll have her name on one of the stands.

At a guess, the fake-out from Bowen and the touch inside from Bott were probably practised elements. Bott doesn’t really have much else she can do in that situation and the presence of Riley dropping into that area suggests that she knew what was coming. The rest was most likely improvised – as most attacks are in football. You plan how to get into certain situations but from there it has to be spontaneous action against what the defence gives you to work with. In this case, Norway were giving NZ channels to run down all night long and the rest was all just timely precision.

Norway clearly weren’t anticipating something like that because they didn’t seem to have a clue what was going on. The player that Hand gets into a footrace with is Mathilde Harviken who was the left-sided centre-back. The left fullback (Tuva Hansen) was one of the three players, along with midfielder Ingrid Engen and winger Julie Blakstad, who surrounded Indi Riley as she threaded that pass through. Don’t even ask where the other two midfielders were. Therefore those were the right back and right CB whom Wilkinson beat into the penalty area. All over the shop.

THE MIDFIELD HOLE

Normally games of football are controlled by whichever team dominates the midfield areas. There are many ways to go about that domination and it should be added that merely controlling a game doesn’t mean you’re going to win it... but it certainly helps. To that point, here’s the full game pass chart, via Opta, from the Norwegian midfield trio (Guro Reiten #11, Frida Maanum #18, Ingrid Engen #7)...

Three things to notice from that:

1. The abundance of red lines for unsuccessful passes

2. The length of many of those passes, particularly the red ones in the attacking half (left side)

3. The big hole in the middle of the pitch

It was awful stuff from the Norwegians, who do have a slippery tendency to pick players in the wrong positions. Ingrid Engen was the deepest midfielder tasked with dropping in and collecting possession from the defence – for Barcelona she’s normally more of an attacking midfielder, certainly not a CDM. Guro Reiten plays a lot on the wing for Chelsea but she was an attack-minded eight here alongside Frida Maanum of Arsenal, who you’d have thought would be the most defensive orientated of the three. The whole thing was a bit of a mess as coach Hege Riise adapted in order to fit all her star creative players into the team... which backfired rather spectacularly.

For example, NZ didn’t really press that high. Norway’s approach of playing long meant there wasn’t much point (NZ passed long just as often but did so more strategically in an attempt to stretch the defence with runners in behind and by accessing the wings nice and quickly). Meanwhile the formation that Jitka Klimková chose, including the old fashioned 4-4-2 defensive set, was always designed to block more than to push. Add that all together and with Norway only having one midfielder there to receive it wasn’t too hard to keep the strikers central and cut that passing lane.

The result was that the Football Ferns squeezed the service to Norway’s killer front three. They forced them into playing long in order to find them, which allowed Rebekah Stott and Katie Bowen (and later on Claudia Bunge) to feast on interceptions and recoveries as they stepped up with aggressive intent. CJ Bott set a tone out wide from minute one with crunching tackles, joined impressively by Indi Riley doubling up in support as those two won 16 challenges between them. Immense numbers. And while Ali Riley had a trickier task against the dribbling skill of Caroline Graham Hansen she dealt with it as an experienced fullback ought to.

All of this was happening because of the midfield hole. The midfield hole that was dug by Ria Percival and Malia Steinmetz, two ball-winning extraordinaires in the centre of the park whose tireless workrates and abrasive defensive mahi was absolutely essential to everything else that went on...

Steinmetz debuted back in 2017 but only featured sporadically for the senior team over the next few years. That ball-winning ability was on full display as early as her U20 World Cup wave but it did take a wee while for her to get settled into professional football with a move to Australia providing the catalyst. It was while Ria Percival was out with her ACL/Meniscus tear that Steinmetz really began demanding first eleven status and it was great to Klimková keep a spot for her in the team even after Percival returned, despite the similarities in their respective games.

Those similarities are enough to terrify any opponent hoping to string a few passes together in the midfield but the worry was that the team’s own distribution might suffer with neither of them being the rhythmic, precision passers that the modern game adores. Hence the temptation to sneak someone like Betsy Hassett, Annalie Longo, or Liv Chance into that spot at Steinmetz’s expense.

Against Vietnam the cure was to pick a midfield three that also included Hassett. Against Norway they simply doubled down on their combative midfield duo, who rewarded them by not only bossing things without the ball but also performing beautifully with the ball to allay those former fears. Not to say they were flawless, completing a combined 48/77 passes at 62%... but that’s skewed by Percival going long with a few crosses/through balls and also, you know, 62% kinda looks fantastic compared to the starting midfield trio of Norway...

• Ingrid Engen – 26/48 passing at 54%

• Frida Maanum – 14/23 passing at 61%

• Guro Reiten – 13/25 passing at 52%

Engen said it best in those quotes above. The defence was too deep which was caused in large part by how the Ferns attacked the channels with runners and directness. She then got sucked backwards to try and be an option but that wasn’t working so the ball got pumped long instead leading to the forwards being too high and the other two midfielders seemed to offer more support to the wingers than the CDM. All of Norway’s problems seemed to stem from that midfield hole. For Ria Percival to be amongst that was no surprise, she’s done that many times for Spurs in the WSL including against some of these very same players. For Malia Steinmetz to put on an equally powerful show in only her 20th international cap... this was a graduation. Nay, a coronation.

SET PIECE SNEAKINESS

One of the reasons that goal kick switcharoo for Wilkie’s goal worked so nicely is that they had variety in how they approached those things. Out of ten goal kicks, Esson launched seven of them. Not sure if that counts the one that Bowen took or not but on average Esson’s GK’s travelled 40.8 metres. Norway on the other hand sent absolutely everything long for an average of 55.7 metre distances. That might have been something they felt they had to do considering that their defence is clearly a bit of a soft spot. Maren Mjelde aside that backline clearly does not stack up against their gold-plated forward line.

The Ferns took a couple short though. Their build-up play from the back was less prominent than in the past but that’s not because they abandoned it, it’s because they were so much better at it. Rather than lingering on the ball and getting pressed they were able to progress through the lines and from side to side with swift passes that didn’t allow Norway to catch up. The midfield hole certainly helped that cause too. They were careful against that high Norwegian attacking line but they definitely weren’t afraid of them either.

Malia Steinmetz said something after the game about how her teammates were always in the right areas. As soon as she received the ball she knew where it was going so she simply kept on making those passes. This was such a well-drilled Ferns team showing all the benefits of that nine-week training camp beforehand. Nine weeks is longer than most club preseasons – Manchester City’s blokes are only just starting friendly games this weekend and the European Super Cup is less than a month away. All that time to work on tactics and formations and scouting and combinations... it’s unprecedented.

They had so much time available that they were able to work on some of the smaller details as well as the big picture tactics. The goal kick stuff was surely part of that. It was also funky to note that whenever they had deep free kicks, as happened a lot in the first half, you’d see Malia Steinmetz make an early run into an offside position... then drift back again looking for the second phase stuff.

It didn’t really work because Norway didn’t bite. Best case scenario there is you drag someone out of the line who thus plays everybody else onside. More realistic outcome is that it’s a way for Steinmetz to get free if she isn’t followed. None of these free kicks led to much but you could tell by the fact that Steinmetz kept making that same move that it was something they’d put intention behind.

There wasn’t anything special about the eight corner kicks that the kiwis had. All were taken by Ria Percival but Norway dealt with those deliveries without panic. Wilkinson and Hegerberg had a real battle going on. Didn’t see Aotearoa crowding out the six-yard box as we’ve seen in the past. Mostly it was CJ Bott in that area and nobody else, while Wilkinson and Bowen were the main targets and Hand/Riley/Steinmetz also hovered around. Percy’s right-footed but was hitting them flat without any massive swerve. Generally looking deep. Nothing much came of them... maybe they’ll have more luck against other teams.

The penalty already got a big mention in the original match report. It was an inch away from being perfect but perhaps Percival was bumped off her mark by the keeper moving early in that direction. Will just say that missing a penalty at this World Cup is not the shameful thing it may appear – everyone else it doing it too. The Denmark vs China match was the ninth of the tournament and the first not to feature a penalty kick at any stage yet only half of the previous eight were actually converted... and two of those successful ones (Riko Ueki for Japan & Georgia Stanway for England) initially missed only to get retakes after the keepers were judged to have moved off their lines early. Ria Percival, Christine Sinclair, Jenni Hermoso, and Alex Morgan have all missed penalties. That’s a pretty mint quartet of players.

THE FORMATION

Jitka Klimková began her reign as Football Ferns head coach talking about wanting a set style of play in which new players would understand their roles from the get-go. But that must have proved harder than expected because after a couple of tours of 4-3-3 she switched it up to a flat 4-4-2 at the SheBelieves Cup in February 2022 and has more or less stuck with that ever since, with the exception of a 3-5-2 against Portugal which didn’t look too shabby to begin with but a few individual mistakes meant that game ended in a blowout and the experiment was canned.

The 4-4-2 was seemingly here to stay... until a friendly against Vietnam 10 days before the start of the World Cup in which suddenly the 4-3-3 returned. Maybe having those two months on the training park finally allowed time to get those ideas through... because not only was it back but it looked really good too. A full-strength Ferns team playing in a formation that allowed them to get numbers forward in attack, it was beautiful to see.

The exact same starting eleven was selected against Norway but instead of a 4-3-3 it was a 4-4-2 again. Why was that the case? Probably because Norway were expected to control the game whereas Vietnam were not. Two approaches based on the level of their opposition. Norway didn’t end up controlling that game at all... but the way that the Ferns clogged them up tactically was a large reason why. As you already know if you’ve read this far.

Now the focus shifts to the Philippines on matchday two. Having beaten the highest ranked team in the group, the Ferns will come up against the lowest ranked team in the group. This was the game that we’d all been targeting our prayers towards in the hope that the Ferns would break the World Cup drought. But now that drought is already broken and a win would instead put them on the verge of the knockout rounds.

This game will require a different tactical bend and there’s a very high chance that means a return to the 4-3-3 we saw against Vietnam. That warm-up against Vietnam always felt like a bit of a sneaky dress rehearsal for the Philippines, testing things out against a similar Southeast Asian nation. By the sounds of it they used the 4-4-2 in the unofficial closed-door warm-up game against Italy. It’s horses for courses, basically.

That was even true of the substitutes that they used against Norway. Claudia Bunge was probably a pre-planned replacement for Rebekah Stott in respect to Stotty’s fitness (not a lot of ninety minute games in there since the cancer recovery – and none at anything like this intensity), but the injections of Paige Satchell and Gabi Rennie were all about keeping up the energy and the workrate off the ball. Against the Philippines, in a game the Ferns will expect to have more possession/territory/control, we’re far more likely to see folks like Chance, Michaela Foster, Milly Clegg, and Grace Jale instead. They do have five subs available (in three sub windows)... although curiously hardly anyone’s used their full allotment so far.

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