Football Ferns

Well, where to from here?

First up Tom, you need to get off google and stop searching for women with Kiwi passports playing in the Swedish second division and take a tour of the country. Get to know us, the kettle's always on.

Did you know Tom, that we have an exciting crop of young female players, 3rd best team in the world, in fact. And you know what's great about youth Tom? They run. They run and they run and they run. No jogging in the second half for these kids, some of them have blistering pace too. Skills can be taught, pace is what we need. Speed Tom, SPEED! 

I watched all their games and these kids press and press and press, they force mistakes, and then they pounce. Every pass is pressured, no sitting back when you're a teenager. Some of their goals were absolute bangers, especially the one that came off the Andreas Heraf set play...

You need to take a chance Tom, a gamble. Find a 15 year-old Mary Fowler, or an Ellie Carpinter. Actually Tom, you had a speedy young gun on the bench - Paige Satchell - if you can steer her towards the goal and not the corners, she might have made an impact in the last 15 minutes and confused those Cameroons. I guess we'll never know...

Don't go pulling club-less players out of retirement Tom, when we have young, keen women. They are our future Tom, and the Olympics should be about getting as many of them into the fray as possible. Throw caution to the wind Tom, cause, you know, what have we got to lose?

You seem like a really nice guy Tom, and I like how you called it straight after the Canada game, cause you were right, we were sharke, and no warm, fuzzy, accentuate-the-positive press release from NZ Football can smooth over those cracks.

Tbh, I was amped after the Netherlands game - we were intense! We were skilled! We treasured the ball! 

What the heck happened Tom? Did Suzy the waitress slip a botulism baguette into brekkie? Quelle horreur! Never saw that team again, not even a glimmer.

It's our passing accuracy that really stings, 53% v Canada, 53%.. only half of all our passes went where they were supposed to. And, as a football ferns supporter this is singularly the MOST FRUSTRATING thing. Well, that and the lack of decent set-the-game-on-fire strikers. 

Who to keep? Chance (she took hers well), Percival, Stott, Erceg, Cleverley (should have had more game time), Nayler, Satchell, Morton (she was a stand out at U20 World Cup, is she injured?), Bott, Skilton, Riley, Longo, Moore (big loss), and...yeah.. nah. that's it really.

I'm sure there will be players, right now, considering their footballing futures at this level, and we thank them for their loyal contribution to the Fern. 

Anyway Tom, all the best mate. Looking forward to your brave and forward-thinking selections for Tokyo, and hearing about your travels round NZ.

PS lov'n the 'gram' Tom, your girls have a sharp gram game, for sure....

Satchell? no thanks

at international level, pace with limited skill is nothing.

So Feverish/Chopah, do you have some actual suggestions instead of rubbishing Dead ant post? They are at least suggesting something and I do think there is something in bring in youth as well. Our U-17s appeared to play a better type of football and from the three games, only the game against Holland the Ferns really showed anything. Not helped by better set up quite defensively each time.

Sure the WC isn't the time to be bedding in youth but now they are out, maybe its what we should be looking forward to.

There's a huge difference between age group level and international football for both men and women. That's just a fact.

I think it's clear that this group of Ferns reached their ceiling 2 or 3 years ago, and have, at best, plateaued. But that's just a part of the story. A number of people here have noted that there has been a significant improvement in the women's game internationally, and it is a much, much more competitive environment than what it used to be. This is something that's been the reality for the All Whites for decades, but I suspect is fast becoming a reality for Football Ferns too. 

Surely pace with limited skill is better than just.. limited skill?

in part I agree with you, women's international football has made leaps forward in improvement, but that's not a negative that's to be celebrated!!   Now there is so many opportunities for women to turn there passion and skill into a career, and though that pathway we will not only improve our game locally but our players playing internationally  will grow in skill and knowledge for our future ferns to come! The part I don't agree with you is where you give the impression we should just except that we can not compete on the world stage and we have had our day!!

Did not score from open play, woeful! Even Thailand managed that.

I didn't mean as a negative, just that the landscape of women's international football is changing very rapidly, and that's clearly going to impact us in one way or another. Whether we can be competitive in this new environment will largely depend on how we do things from here - for example, Phoenix's attempt to get a team in the NWL seems like a very good step in the right direction.

At the same time, it would be naïve to think that the increasing competitiveness of women's international football won't bring similar challenges to the ones faced by the All Whites, so we need to be prepared for that, not just bury heads in the sand and ignore it.

I tried not to insinuate that, more that FIFA shouldn't allow those situations to develop.  As it was Chile 2-0 up in 85th minute, 50/50 VAR penalty call

I don't think it was 50/50, keeper is allow to go up for the ball but if you miss it and jump into the player, that is a foul. Clip is here https://streamja.com/dRQK

Yes - focus on skill aquisition and pick players for NZ teams based on ability and not athletic ability - through all the grades.

post-mortem of the tournie, and the preceding era, you'd want to put a massive broom through the squad. There isn't the players there, but worse decisions could be made than to kick off a rebuilding period. Agree completely with your comment. I'd rather see a Rolston than a Satchell.

Cameroon were rubbish - but until we have a side that can string passes together..

There are players in that squad more than capable of  playing with technique and skill. I think there are players capable of playing pass and move football without the long balls and with the ability to counter on the break with the ball at their feet or with sharp passing.  Sermani did a good job in terms of defensive structure but he really gave them nothing going forward.  Some are at the end of their time with the Ferns but still a core that are perfectly capable of playing better football if only they would be given the tactics to  make use of their abilities.

Are there really?

Apart from Erceg at North Carolina, being rated one of the best defenders in the US, do we have any FFs playing regularly at top clubs?

Esp midfielders or attackers? Surely that's a pretty good barometer, of the skill and ability of this FFs team, esp from an attacking sense. 

I don't think 53% passing completion can be blamed on Sermanni. More an indication that the current cattle just ain't that good.

Be good to get John Herman's view. Ex FFs coach, and now in Canada with the men's team. Canadian women's programme seems to be working. What are they doing?

Controversial, and will never happen for all sorts of reasons, but base the next U17 girls squad (U15-16s now) at Ole for 12 months - as an experiment!

The passing percentage is partly a function of long balls forward from the defenders. Also if passing patterns and off the ball movement when in possession arent setting up players to pass and receive those percentages  are affected too.

Katie Bowen, Annalie Longo, Betsy Hassett, Ali Riley, Ria Percival, Daisy Cleverley are technically capable of much much more if given a system that encourages passing football. There are also other players around who can do more.   One big problem is the age of the squad, there are going to be a large number replaced soon and thats also going to take a bit of time to sort out

If you think basing U17s at Ole is a good idea then sorry but I really cant take you seriously.

As an aside I guess there's already the beginnings of a longer term plan at Ole in that they have a group of about 14? 11/12yr old local girls training/playing with them ..So will be about 4 years to see what progress they've made under Ole & if any are in the frame for NZ U17's in about 2023?

Of course its likely some players will drop out, new players will come in etc but will be interesting to see if any of this initial core make the U17's at that time.

I wonder if anything can genuinely be taken from Heraf’s take on the FF now.? Forget all of the unsavoury elements of his personality, but concentrate on his footballing observations. 

We have spent far too long being driven by a position of fear. Fear that we dont want to get humiliated at WC's mostly at age group level. Coaches driven by the need to make sure we look credible and that desire has meant that we rarely ever attempt to be more adventurous in our style of play and more adventurous in faith in our players. This despite the fact that for a decent amount of time now our kids have been taught to play pass and move football, to learn how to play out from the back. Its been at least a decade now where NZF coaching courses have been focussing on getting coaches to avoid long ball, avoid physical attributes being a main  driving factor and at Federation Academies the focus being on developing technical proficiency. At the same time and arguably before NZF headed down this path we also saw a number of private academies such as WYNRs and Coerver ( among many) as well as countless individual coaches trying to push technical proficiency as the holy grail. Then add in the Ole academy and Phoenix etc in recent years and the whole ethos of football for our kids has been for over a decade a collective push towards a more technical based style of play. As well as that anyone who has ever witnessed NTC coaching camps will know there simply isnt any long ball football pushed, its all technical advancement.

However far too often we have seen at our senior level our coaches then ask the players to play a longer ball direct style of football which is in fact the opposite of what the grassroots scene is trying to do. Hudsons football was awful for example, the opposite of what the majority of our AW players had been taught to play. Heraf was a well know direct style longer ball counter attack type coach. Sermani did to his credit from my eyes anyway have the Ferns looking well structured in defense but did use a long ball counter attack style. Again thats not what the majority of our players have been taught over the years.

So why does this keep happening?

A few years ago I was at North Harbour Stadiums back field watching a training game between a North Shore selection against the NZ ( I think from memory U17s but it may have been U20's) WC preparation squad. I was sitting near a coach of some sort who was videoing the training game and directly behind him were Allan Jones and Chris Milicich.  The guy doing the videoing at one point made a remark about how often the U20s/U17s launched long ball forwards and how it basically lost possession every single time. At that point Jones and Milicich started to argue that at International level coaches had to get results and that was all that mattered and within NZ's context, a good result was not being hammered at a WC. What an awful mentality.  Real conversation I heard not made up. Fear of being hammered killing any gains being made by the coaching of kids via local coaches, Federation coaches, Academy coaches, NTC coaches.

From my point of view it would be better long term if we had our teams try and play the football the kids are being taught by the overall systems here  rather than ask them to change style and go for damage limitation. I think our age group coaches should not worry about the result and try to attain targets revolving around meaningful attributes of numbers of successful dribbles, numbers of successful balls forward on the ground, numbers of successfull passes in the attacking third etc etc. The more we play at senior level the way the kids are actually being taught the better we will become.

Buckinghams U20's  showed us all exactly what our young players are capable of. We need to believe in them, let them play in a manner that they are taught to play and stop going to tournaments and setting up to be safe at age group Tournaments, they for NZ especially are really important in developing for the big 2 teams.

With respect to Heraf i think he falls into the camp of coaching being driven by fear rather than progress.

Well said.

think what you have said is spot on. But realistically we are only now starting to see the kids coming through that can play that style of play. Priviously possibly in the AJ and Milicich team you are talking a out the players weren't yet up to that level. 

I have possibly been apart of a conversation with Alan Jones where he justified the way they played. Whilst I dont agree with the style of play they did play, they have been told they need to get results and if that's the best way with what you have then makes senses. Jobs on the line with these results. I dont think you can blame a coach of q team at that level if his instruction from NZF was to get results. He spoke about a games played in south Korea in a warm up tournament, they let the players play home they wanted playing out from the back... this was largely unsuccessful in first half and spent most of time in own. At half time it was put to players carry on playing same way or change up and go more direct, player changed and got a win against I think Nigeria... got the desired result at same time player prob realised where they actually at level wise...

This was at a time when Rojas, Wood, Barbarouses Hicks, and others were coming through the youth ranks all technically excellent players in their age groups. There absolutely were players capable of pass and move. 

With respect to the South Korean warm up tournament, thats exactly when you have to go through the pain period with respect to becoming proficient at pass and move football. You dont give up at half time, it takes more than 45 minutes to progress anything.

Well, we discussed all the tiebreaker rulez, and at the end, EVERYONE played for the ferns, even Chile, who hit the crossbar by penalty, so even an 1-0 would have been enough, but if you don't help yourself, no one other can help you ... 

OK, there were tough losses: Meikayla Moore got injured one day before the first game, Hannah Wilkinson just turned back after a 2nd torn of her ACL, Amber Hearn (don't know, if she'd play, was injured, too) and in the 2nd game they lost CJ Bott, too.
That seemed to be too much for an underdog team ... 

But anyways, seeing some of the Ferns posting about 'a heartbreaking out' on their insta accounts, I don't know, what I should think ... 

That was a very good performance in game one, but the other two matches was a blend of cowardness and unability ... 

I think Riley, Percival, Gregorious and Erceg will still put Tokyo on their map, but it's time, to guide the young ferns to the A-team, like they did with Moore and Satchell in Rio. 

A big question mark will be behind Wilkinson: Will she come back to her former top level, or may she even starts a new career in arts or music? 

And all in all, they finally need a bit more luck in the draws: Holland, the european champion (before Germany and France), Canada and Cmeroon, well there has been easier draws ... 

I understand for sure, but when results are needed do you flog a died horse or try something else that is more likely to work. 

You named 4 players out of a squad of what 20? 2 players you names didnt play in the team. Barbarous was to old and Wood was unavailable. More the likes of Sean 2nd touch tackle Lovemore, Dakota Lucus and Andy Bevin...

The latest u20 group would have had last 8 years or more playing out from the back, compared to the other group who hadn't had that from the age of 10 11. 

It think this type of thing comes down to NZF not having a clear philosophy probable at the time where at this stage they "might".

This is the essential difference between, say Hudson's group of AWs who played Peru in 2017, and the current U20s side.

Were the NTCs established in 2011 with the Whole of Football Plan?

If so from the 13-14 players who got minutes against Peru in 2017 - Marinovic, Reid, Smith, Durante, Wood, Wee Mac and M Boxall would never have been near one. All either had their formative football education overseas or had left NZ well before 2011. And for better all worse nearly all were dominant figures in the 2017 AWs.

So it's a blatant exaggeration to say that the majority of the AWs under Hudson had come through the WoFP system.

The welcome wholesale change in style of play from "hoofball", is only now being realised from the work started 8-10 years ago.

This will be fascinating to watch.

Hopefully there are a few female equivalents of a McCowatt, Just etc amongst the group. 

Can anyone tell me what Heraf did wrong again? was he just trying to change the culture and tell a few home truths.This group of women must be the most overrated over funded and under performing team that Nz Football has ever put together.Quite a large number of these players have surely played their last game for New Zealand, Oh but hang on the Olympics are coming up lets stick together as a family and not worry about the future and if they don't pick us lets stick together and moan to NZ Football about unfair treatment and waste more money getting Pip Muir back to tell us that the environment is wrong.When its the culture these ageing players want to maintain.so tell me again what was it Heraf did wrong. Not to worry Andy Boyens will sort it for us God help us in that regard. 

besides openly saying that football in  could never compete with anyone on the world stage, he was nothing more than a bully who had really negative ideas about the potential in NZ.

Really or was it a group not happy getting told a few home truths not sure things have got any better.Something has to change this group and their culture has to change. the cockroach comment is not far off the mark either.

You sometimes do well in lead in games but when it comes to the crunch this group continue to fail.

before the WoF there had been for a number of years a move in coaching circles to more pass and move philosophies at NZF football coaching course. The WoF plan was a natural progression of what was already starting.

I remember watching Jason Hicks for example as a 13 year old playing for Albany and coached by a guy who's nickname was Becks. Jason was a lovely player to watch back then, beautiful skilss and lots of flair. That side among many played lovely football, pass and move, creative and the players were never asked to hoof it long. This was roughly back in 2002 maybe? I forget exactly but will be within a year or two of that Cameron Lindsay was at Birkenhead and I remember him as a 9 or 10 year old being coached by a guy who also pushed the technical side of things, this was maybe 2001?. A large number of players making it into the NTC equivalent trainings around this time were going to WYNRS which was pushing technical attributes very heavily and this again was maybe 1999/2000? I watched a lot of those NTC equivalent trainings and Federation trainings at this time, they would hold camps at Kings College and all of those emphasised technique, skill pass and move etc. I forget what they were called at the time. You could tell the Wynrs kids, Wynton used to piss off the powers that be by getting his kids to all show up with wynrs t shirts. I also recall Coerver getting started here and Coerver kids being present, all kids with a pass and move, dribble and turn abilities.

Again I forget the exact date but I think in 2005 Alf Galustian founder of Coerver coming to NZ and  running a Coerver coaching clinic at St Kents, if I remember right it was part of thier expansion into Australia but NZF organised this. There had been a movement towards more technical based football coaching philosophies for a few years both from local coaches, private academies and also some from NZF. I think Paul Smalley tried to do something with the Small Whites program around this time too.

The majority of those Hudson AW's had come through an overall NZ Football scene which had moved to a more technical based preference of playing style and that became formalised with the WoF plan. A large number of the training drills at Federation and NTC trainings for the youngsters that were used before the WoF plan were still used when it came in.  Weir Rosebowl coaches from roughly 2003 were asked to select players based purely on technical ability and that physical attributes were not a selection criteria. I know this because I was one of those coaches and 2 years later at a senior coaching course held at St Kents in Auckland those same ideas were all being pushed with respect to the youngsters during open discussions. The move away from hoofball in reality for the kids started sometime at the end of the 90's, the WoF plan happily made it more of a formalised recognised approach.

My frustration stems from the fact that what we tell the kids to do ends up being thrown out at senior level because the coaches are too scared to carry on that approach, mostly because they simply dont know how to coach pass and move. 

He wasn't Satin reincarnated as some would have you believe.

He was not much of a people person so rubbed people up the wrong way, which all turned bad when he appointed himself head coach of the ferns and people started to see his football style philosophy, which wasn't pretty or desirable for those that love to see the game played a certain way, and people found out that his direct European arrogant approach didn't fit in well with the laid back easy going (and yes, a little player power) kiwi mentality. When he then turned around and said NZ would never be able to compete with other nations, that was putting a match to the barrels of black powder he'd built around himself. He did seem genuinely surprised when it all blew up in his face.

well your are right with what you are saying, you are still talking about a handful of kids in the early 00's being told to play like that. Far more at grassroots wouldnt be getting it on the same level. Players I have worked with that were involved with 17s and 20s side hadn't had that from a very early age. 1 of them actually mentioned recently the massive difference in ability between this years u20 side the his one in 2015.  I think since 2011 WOF kids are hopefully now being encouraged to play possession based from and earlier age as the coaching course work is starting  to filter down to every player not just a handful of player who were lucky enough to have it prviously. 

Anyway hopefully the u20 side is just the start and we can see the same type of football being player by all teams going forward as all these k9ds come up though the ages.

..

I can kind of see your point. Heraf culturally was the wrong choice as coach. Dictatorial Germanic European coach meets laid back kiwis....However his assessment of the Ferns was bang on. i watched all their WC games and they were very very poor and very limited.. They set up defending in two banks of four and hoofed any possession up field. It caught the Dutch out in the first half of the first game but after that it was all one way traffic. The second game they were dreadful. Some of the worse football I have ever seen from any NZ team. They were dominated by a very weak Cameroon team in the last game but did better in the last 20 minutes as Cameroon pushed forward for a winning goal. The NZ side was the only team not to score a goal in the whole tournament.

I cant help think there is a culture of entitlement that has crept into the NZ football scene. Hudson, who said a lot of dumb things was actually bang on when he criticised the poor attitude of some young NZ male players. When you look at social media of some of the Ferns and some of the  NZ age group teams you would think they were global football stars.

Personally I  think NZ football has got the cart before the horse with the womens game. The Ferns got an elite program with loads of clinics and warm up games but they are no way elite level. Rather than fly people around in business class and stay in nice hotels they should use this money to try and grow the womens  game at grass roots level. Better youth coaching and facilities for the girls might just start producing some players, that as a group can do better than a 55% pass success rate. The under 17 girls would be a good place to start

maybe a closer look at “player power” too? In Heraf’s situation I think he didn’t help by being a cock, but in some ways he was a little like the boy who called out “the king is not wearing any clothes”. Australia had an issue with the Matildas ex coach too. I know there has to be a balance but surely there has to be a boss in a team situation, this kum-by-ah stuff is all very well when you’re at the top of your game but often the players are the last to realise what’s wrong. 

His assessment of the Ferns was miles off target. He got his assessment of their mentality completely wrong by telling everyone we shouldnt try but should do our best to limit damage. The players absolutely hated that and thats what set them off, it was pretty widely reported so not sure why you appear to have missed it. 

Where does this laid back Kiwi bollocks come from? Have a look through NZ's sporting history and it is chock full of intensity, skill, courage, hunger, drive and all those sorts of adjectives. Just because we are generally friendly as a country has never meant we lack drive and intensity in sport.

He was also miles off in his assessment in the Ferns ability, beautifully illustrated by our recent win over England. yes it was against the run of play and yes we did play on the counter and yes it was a warm up friendly game but then the Japanese game where he made his ignorant comments was also a friendly. The thing which bothered the players was the idea that they shouldnt even try or think about competing.

With respect to the WC its the coach that set the team out to play on the counter attack, ask any of the players if they would have been comfortable attempting to play another style or tactic and you will hear a resounding yes. Thats because they have the exact opposite mentality of being laid back in their efforts.  The important point being that Heraf effectively said dont bother trying because your shark.

Heraf was an absolute fudgewit and nothing he said or did is worth merit, he fully deserved to be sent packing. It has nothing to do with German/Austrian triats etc but all to do with being clueless.

With respect to funding etc the Ferns are at the end of a cycle that started sometime around 2007 and they fully deserved the level of support they got through the last 10 years despite never quite getting to the targets they themselves set.  Their current slide down the rankings and perceived position in international womens football has a lot to do with the fact a large number of the traditional football nations who previously didnt give a sharke about womens football have changed tune and woken up to the importance of womens football in the bigger scheme of things and are now taking it seriously.  We have stagnated in our development and need a jump start and hopefully this end of cycle will get things moving again. Yep move some of the funding for the Ferns to the younger sides by all means, its time to do so.

Hudson was also a fudgewit and his comments about the younger players  having a poor attitude is nicely made to look moronic by Buckinghams efforts with the U20s' Attitude, team culture, hunger, desire, workrate, skill technique etc etc etc are all driven by the coaches. Buckingham who quietly went about his job produced a thrilling team of young NZ players whilst blowhard big mouth Hudson produced some of the very worst football I have ever seen from the AW's and blamed players attitudes.... Actually I first started watching the AW's in the early 60's and Hudsons AW's played without doubt the worst football I have ever seen the AW's play.

On reflection, and i bet there is a lot of that going on, Wilkinson should not have been on the tour. She looked well out of order when she came on briefly, even hesitant to shoot in the box when had the opportunity. She may be right for Tokyo. Several are indicating on insta that they are now looking ahead to #tokyo2020...rather entitled perhaps? ..i dont think the team for that has been named yet...apart from Tom,

He needs to take a glass boot on a tour of the country to find a star striker ..a Kerr, Marta or Maartens. We need a rockstar.

Paige Satchel has signed in Germany for SC Sand. Not the best team, but 1st division. I'll keep an eye on her, when season starts. 

BTW: My favourite and home team Paderborn has repeated the football miracle and has promoted to 1st division (Bundesliga) again :-) 

How about some of the younger FFDP girls like Blake, Brown or Jenkins. There is definitely potential there.

Give them some international exposure... They get a pro deal somewhere...  They play football full time ... By next world cup they are scoring goals for us at this level.

I think the key for these younger girls though when they get pro deals is to be in a team environment where they are playing week in week out not sitting on the bench all season. That has certainly worked for the likes of CJ Bott and Micheala Moore who are playing for less recognized clubs but getting the game time. There game is improving. 

Compared to the likes of White and Reily who more recently played for big clubs, but to me there lack of game time means they struggle to come up to speed for tournament football and just lack that killer edge that playing week in week out gives you.

yep for sure...really cant understand why Hannah Blake..a specialist striker..was not on this tour.