Three games post-hiatus for the All Whites, and three wins against three different nations from three different confederations. First they beat Curaçao 2-1, then they beat Bahrain 1-0, now they’ve beaten The Gambia 2-0.
Tough stuff this Women’s Super League. No sooner has Ria Percival scored a remarkable (if lucky) late equaliser against Manchester United than she’s gotta prepare for an even tougher test as Arsenal popped by for a bit of North London Derby action.
It was wet, it was windy, it was Wellington. Summer season footy at its slipperiest as Central League champs Wellington Olympic hosted the underdogs of the South Central Series in Selwyn United
They don’t call it The Land of the Long White Cloud for nothing. Seemed like no matter where you were in the country this week it was wet and windy and that made for some slippery National League footy.
In 51 previous WSL appearances, Ria Percival had not scored a goal. Sure she’d scored in League Cup action, she even scored for the Football Ferns not so long ago, but not in the Super League.
It is better to have some football than no football, not sure which of the great philosophers first said that – it might’ve been Socrates... or maybe Johan Cruyff? - but the wisdom lives on.
Here we are again, returning not entirely unspoiled from across that great ocean. The National League has arrived but it’s not the National League – it’s the South Central Series because a National League requires an entire nation
Say what you will about the ill-fated and short-lived tenure of Darije Kalezic as Wellington Phoenix manager... but the man undeniably did one thing right: he gave Liberato Cacace his Nix debut. Plucked him out of the reserves where he was playing as a defensive midfielder and converted him into a left fullback.
All the talk about this latest All Whites squad has been about which bloke is unvaccinated and that’s largely because there’s not a whole lot else going on here. The Aotearoa men’s national team will face The Gambia on Wednesday 17 November NZT.
You can’t keep The Woodsman down for long, you just can’t. Only one goal in his last nine Premier League games meant one thing: he was due. And you don’t want to be the team in his way when that’s the case.
At one stage it looked as if the Wellington Phoenix were gonna get a women’s team up and running last year. Then the Aussie authorities went and whipped that rug out from under our feet by refusing to allow the Nix to register New Zealanders as local players
That was miles better than expected. Jitka Klimková promised that it would be but coaches always say things like that, right? She’s out here trying to reshape the Football Ferns in her vision and such a project will take time
Sarpreet Singh just wants to make sure you haven’t forgotten about him. Sixteen and a bit minutes into SSV Jahn’s game against Hannover 96 and there he was collecting the ball on the right wing and working a lil give-and-go before drilling home his third goal of the season
It’s important to keep the context of these Canadian friendlies in mind. They’re the first games with new manager Jitka Klimková in charge and she’s only got half her first-choice squad. Not only that but…
This is what Joe Bell does. Week after week. It was the 29th minute of the game away against Strømsgodset, one of VFK’s many games against teams below them on the ladder down the stretch of the season, and Bell won the ball back out on the right edge…
The whole conundrum that the Fernies find themselves in is that they’re far too good for Oceania but not yet good enough for major tournaments. The jump between those two standards is huge and they rarely get to properly test themselves against teams of a similar level.
The last time the All Whites played against Bahrain, the kiwi team won 1-0 via a header off a wing-back’s cross by the son of a well known NZ sporting personality. Almost exactly a dozen years later the same damn thing happened again.
It has not, it’s fair to say, been a good couple weeks for the NWSL. For the North Carolina Courage in particular. It was their coach who was fired after allegations of past misconduct emerged, allegations which brought into focus the frankly shocking rate of scandal in America’s top professional women’s soccer competition
What is there to be gained from a couple of sneaky friendlies at this time? For starters there’s the obvious one of ending a 692 day hiatus between fixtures for the men’s national team of Aotearoa, that’s a pretty significant one
The leaves are back on the trees. The temperature is rising. Cricketers are starting to lay claim to the local fields again. All that can only mean one thing: it’s nearly time for National League football to begin.