There really aren’t too many better practitioners of the leadership arts than Abby Erceg. Her prowess for lifting others up around her was on full display as the Courage took on Washington Spirit in their final Challenge Cup group stage match, knowing that if they avoided defeat then they’d finish top of Group A.
It was a surreal feeling. All that positive energy surrounding the Wellington Phoenix and their first game at home all season, with a crowd of 18,000 fans in attendance... and they got pumped 4-0.
Never will get tired of this sight. Liberato Cacace doing his thing in Serie A, rocking that Empoli jersey as he does every second week. It was his turn again as Empoli travelled to face Udinese
The problem with this Footy Ferns series against Australia is that they’re better than us. By a decent margin. They’re out there plotting how they’re gonna progress through the knockouts at the next World Cup while we’re just hoping we can win one game
The Aotearoa Under-20 women’s team played a couple of games against their U20 Australian counterparts over the past week and that’s a pretty significant thing. Not only because there’s an U20 World Cup coming up at the end of the year but also…
Newcastle United (and by extension Chris Wood) met Wolverhampton Wanderers on a Friday night on Tyneside. A welcome fixture in front of their home fans after losing three in a row on their travels
To be fair, there was no way that the Football Ferns should have even been close in that game judging by the run of play, let alone still leading heading into stoppage time. It had been an Australian barrage for the majority of the match
The pattern at Empoli has been to alternate left-backs with every game. Liberato Cacace and Fabiano Parisi performing a tag team routine (including subbing in for each other mid-games)
Mission accomplished. Objective complete. Level clocked. The All Whites had plenty of dramas around this OFC World Cup Qualifying tournament but ‘twas nothing they couldn’t handle
Who’s keen on a couple Footy Ferns games against the Matildas next week? Might as well, s’pose. Got nothing else on. One game in Townsville on Friday 8 April and one game in Canberra on the following Monday sounds like a bit of fun.
Claudia Bunge is a two-time A-League champion after going back to back with the Melbourne Victory, how about that?
That was gruelling. But from somewhere amidst a fog of fouls, Liberato Cacace popped up with his first senior international goal to give the All Whites a 1-0 win over Tahiti in the semi-finals of the Oceania World Cup qualifiers
Imagine being New Caledonia coach Dominique Wacalie. There’s twenty minutes to go in your game against New Zealand, the lads have served up a pretty commendable account of themselves to have things at 3-1 and you turn around to see this…
When Hannah Wilkinson signed with Melbourne City in the A-League, a competition which has provided a welcome shot of energy into many a kiwi footballer’s career over the years, it was bound to be a good thing. Yet few could have predicted exactly how good of a thing it would prove to be.
The theme of game one’s article was not to worry about anything other than the three points... and game two showed exactly why. Chuck Chris Wood and Marko Stamenic into the pot and it’s an entirely different stew.
And thus Ali Riley returned to her home state of California where not only did she immediately slide into the left-back position of their first ever starting line-up but they even made her captain...
The important thing is that the All Whites got what they needed out of the match against Papua New Guinea with a 1-0 victory and if they end up returning to Qatar in November for the World Cup then nobody, absolutely nobody, not a soul in existence, is going to care about what happened in their first game of qualifying
When Alex Rufer was helped off the park during the first half of the Wellington Phoenix’s defeat against Brisbane Roar – snapping the seven-game unbeaten streak that has reinvigorated their season – it wasn’t immediately clear that something serious had happened
It was only ever going to be a matter of time. Chris Wood had been delivering excellent performances without scoring a goal, finally he delivered an excellent performance in which he did score a goal.
Okay so first of all we’ve gotta set the scene here because this is not a normal All Whites squad. Ordinarily we could look at who’s in and who’s out and draw some conclusions about where everyone is in the depth chart but it feels reckless to do that in such crazy circumstances