There it is, the official debut. Wasn’t from the start but after Lineth Beerensteyn had given Bayern the lead against Frankfurt in their first home game of the season, the Dutch forward’s strike partner Jovana Damnjanovic picked up an injury and needed to be replaced. This was in the 35th minute and despite it being a striker who came off it was left back Ali Riley who was introduced.
With the FFA Cup game in the rearview, the preseason process is back on track for the Welly Nix. That means a bunch of friendlies against local sides and it means a bunch of chat coming out of training sessions about how good the lads are looking and how well they’re adapting to what the gaffer’s asking.
So the Courage didn’t play an NWSL game this week… because they were a little busy with the International Champions Cup. Back to back games over the weekend and it started with a scrap against Manchester City, who despite being in preseason, named a team full of internationals.
You kids out there might not realise this… but before there was Sarpreet Singh there was Ryan Thomas. A kiwi footy player transferring to a title contending team in a major European league. That’s a bit of a facetious way to start there but point being: Ryan Thomas’s move to PSV Eindhoven was a massively significant move.
Coming into the new season following on from some tantalising preseason form, it took Chris Wood just quarter of an hour to have the ball in the back of the net. Only drama was that it didn’t count. Ashley Barnes had been offside in the lead up so Woody’s simple tap-in was rubbed off.
It’s an ingrained tradition at this point, the Wellington Phoenix popping over the ditch in the middle of their preseason to lose another FFA Cup game. This was the sixth year of the Nix bring involved in this thing and they’ve only ever won one game.
The theme of Sarpreet’s last few weeks remains: whenever he’s been offered up an opportunity, he’s taken it and demanded more. The fact that Niko Kovač keeps on giving him these new opportunities is as good an indication as there is that his rise is for real.
Reid reported for preseason as normal and although his training regime was still a little cautious, only this week has he started training full on with the squad without limitations, he finally made his long awaited return to the field in a pre-season friendly in Austria last month. As the man himself said: “495 days later… back at it again”.
With the Reign still in the midst of a pretty difficult injury crisis and again missing their USA international players, they were going to need a few bonus contributions against the Houston Dash. Contributions from players who maybe haven’t been there that long. Players like Rosie White.
According to the proverbial ‘they’, preseason means absolutely nothing. Don’t worry about results until there are points on the line and don’t even look at the table until at least November. But while good and bad preseasons might not be the best determiners of impending success, it sure bloody helps to at least have one.
These are wonderful times in kiwi football as the last few months have served up a plethora of exciting transfers, a Women’s World Cup that reached new levels of cultural relevance, a kiwi U20 team that took on the world with full confidence and quality… even the All Whites booked another game for later in the year.
It’s always a pleasant way to start with a couple kiwi footballers going head to head and this week it was Abby Erceg versus Katie Bowen in the NWSL over in the States. North Carolina Courage against the Utah Royals.
We’re still a few months away from Welly Nix articles that don’t begin with the yarn about how Ufuk Talay is pretty much having to build this squad back up from scratch. Maybe once the actual footy starts and we can get into all that. For now though there are still plenty of areas where the Nix are playing catch-up.
OH WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT!? Nothing much to see, just Sarpreet Singh playing for Bayern Munich against Arsenal is all. Getting minutes alongside Robert Lewandowski and Kingsley Coman and Joshua Kimmich and the lads. Then a few days later we did it all over again as Singh was given twenty-odd minutes off the bench against the might of Real Madrid.
Only one of the five imports is staying on from last season. Only four of the top seventeen players in terms of minutes played are still at the club. Of the starting XI from the playoff game last season there are only three still there. Of the 44 goals scored (excluding OGs), only six are still at the club. Only two current players have played more than 50 times for the Nix. Every single jersey number from 1-12 is available.
It’s been fourteen long months since he was stretchered off injured against Swansea in the Premier League but Winnie finally got back on the field this week in preseason action for West Ham.
You wouldn’t believe it but the All Whites have confirmed another game for later in the year. Three days after they take on Ireland in Dublin in November they’ll meet Lithuania in Vilnius, making full use of the FIFA window in the process.
Signing season is always a wonderful time of the year and as we cruise on through the month of July it means that all them European teams are looking to stock up. Sarpreet Singh is going to be the golden signing of this year but don’t sleep on this sneaky nugget as Ria Percival has made the switch from West Ham across town to Tottenham in the English Super League.
For a club with an entire country of players to take a peek at and with an obviously limited financial muscle, not to mention a club that’s always asked to justify its own existence, the business of developing players is a necessary investment. Like, not just some romantic ideal… it’s an absolute necessity in order to be a competitive team in a foreign league.
It’s a long World Cup when you don’t make it out of the group stages – Abby Erceg is already back training with the North Carolina Courage and would have played on the weekend had it not been for a minor niggle and this was before the World Cup semi-finals had even happened.