Victoria Esson – Rangers, SCO (23 caps/0 goals)
Anna Leat – Aston Villa, ENG (16/0)
Murphy Sheaff – Kansas State University, USA (0/0)
Righto, so who is Murphy Sheaff? Aside from being the only non-professional player in the squad, she’s here as the third-choice goalkeeper with Brianna Edwards unavailable. BE seems to be taking a break from the sport dating back to the last few weeks of the Wellington Phoenix season. Gotta do what you’ve gotta do. This sabbatical also led to her withdrawing from the previous national team squad hence why Aimee Danieli was called up as a replacement on that occasion. It made sense to simply summon up a Wellington Phoenix reserve for a home series like that, cut down on travel times/cost. But for an away tour ahead of a major tournament you’ve gotta stick to the hierarchy and that means Murphy Sheaff.
Like Edwards, Sheaff was born and raised in Australia but has played for Aotearoa through the age grades. In fact, she actually started ahead of Edwards at the last U20 World Cup. This isn’t her first Football Ferns call-up either, although she remains uncapped. Sheaff’s been doing the college thing these past couple of years, initially at Jacksonville University where she didn’t play all the time but she did log the best save percentage in all of NCAA Division 1 soccer in 2022 (keeping five clean sheets in eight starts), then she transferred to Kansas State where she could be the undisputed number one and had another strong campaign. With Bri Edwards out and Bundesliga champion Erin Nayler not having played a single game all season, Murphy Sheaff was the next keeper in line. Simple as that.
But it’s all academic when it comes to third-choice keepers because this team has two number ones. Vic Esson is currently in the middle of her finest run of games for Rangers, who narrowly missed out on the SWPL title due to goal difference (largely because they only drew 0-0 with eventual champs Celtic a few weeks ago, Esson keeping the clean sheet). But Rangers have already won the League Cup and there’s a Scottish Cup final in a few days. Meanwhile Anna Leat had a slight hiccup when she was red carded against Chelsea a few weeks back but otherwise she’s been excellent for Aston Villa, closing the season out while regular starter Daphne van Domselaar was injured. That culminated in a spectacular individual performance, earning Player of the Day honours from the BBC crew, in a 2-1 loss to Manchester City in the final round. Leat made eight saves to leave the City players in tears after they missed out on the WSL title due to goal difference.
Since the World Cup, the goalkeeping starts have gone:
Esson, Leat, Leat, Leat, Edwards, Leat, Esson, Leat, Esson, Leat, Esson