Last time I wrote about the chaos that so many teams find themselves in as managers make way and players move on. This time I wanna take a peek at some of the player movement that’s been happening as we begin to make sense of all that chaos.
It was a while in coming but then once that first goal of the season rustled rewardingly into that net, Chris Wood didn’t have to wait long for a second. His last Premier League goal came on 14 April against Cardiff City. After waiting 160 days between strikes he only had to wait four minutes and fifteen seconds for the next one.
Exploiting their status as the only professional club in Aotearoa and tapping into that production line – of which they were already a major part – just seems like the natural antidote… but then it’s understandable that it took the copious remuneration of the Sarpreet Singh transfer to tip that one over the top.
Starting this week with Erin Nayler and her Bordeaux crew because taking any possible risk of them sliding under the radar would be a crime. This team has started the season so strongly and up against Montpellier, the club that beat them to third last season, they laid down another statement of intent with their third straight win to begin the new campaign.
The New Zealand U23 men just came through a couple friendly games against Australia and in a week they take on the best of Oceania for a spot at the 2020 Olympics. Back in July an U23 selection went to Samoa and won the Pacific Games. Busy times indeed for Des Buckingham
New season, new club, new colours for Ria Percival. Same city though, swapping the claret and blue of West Ham for the lilywhite of Tottenham Hotspur. And after playing right back for most of last season she was named in a prominent defensive midfield role for their Super League opener away against Chelsea at a well stacked Stamford Bridge.
Jeremy Brockie signs with the Team of Choice on a season long loan deal where he’ll reunite with coach Eric Tinkler who got some of his best footy out of him at SuperSport United and who else happens to be on the books at Maritzburg these days? A couple kiwi Premiership veterans in Dan Morgan and Micah Lea’alafa.
Most countries don’t really care about Olympic football, that’s the reality. They’re not too bothered if they don’t qualify and they don’t send proper squads even if they do. Usually that’s the way it goes.
The All Whites needed a new manager after Fritz Schmid stepped down in surprising yet underwhelming circumstances and they needed a manager for now. Not some idealised NZ Football marketing version of where this All Whites team is, not the version of a couple years ago coming off a run of meaningful games, but this team in its current state right now.
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.