Football Ferns

Caught the highlights last night.  The FF goal was wicked.

We are qualified for the olympics right?

Not yet, have to play Papua New Guinea on the 23rd & 26th Jan

And we just need to come out of that as victors to be in?

If so it will be the only thing in the 'lympics I will care about.

Yes and our record against PNG of Played 14, won 13, drawn 1, scored 85 and conceded 1 suggests we should be ok

TOUCH WOOD!!!!!

Excellent stuff though.  Woo I will give a shark about the Olympics.

Looks like the return game is a shambles - apparently there are visa issues for the PNG team and they didn't board their plane.

Yeah, never got their visas sorted and apparently the PNG girls have gone home. NZF trying to still organise a game, so be interested in who they play and if it'll still be on Sky.

I bet David Chung never forgets to organise his visas for his FIFA junkets! The U20 WWC in PNG is going to be amazing with organisation like this!

Don't think this is so much a 'visa' issue but rather PNG trying to keep their costs down and avoiding playing a pointless game.

If that's the case why did they bother with the first game? PNG's goal on Saturday was only the 2nd they have ever scored against NZ (we have played them 15 times and scored 92 goals). Surely the fine for defaulting would negate keeping costs down.........unless this hasn't been defined in the competition rules and it will be decided by Oceania (oh I see now...)

10,000CHF fine. I'm guessing that the 'visa' issue has been brought up to limit the impact of the fine.

As for why play in the first place - well, for starters, there's always the chance of NZ playing ineligible players...

Interesting question from junior Fuego. Is this the first time a WC qualifier has been decided because a team can't compete in the return leg?   Seems random.

Nope. USSR refused to play the return leg in Chile before the 1974 World Cup after Pinochet's military junta took over (and did all sorts of very nasty things). That's just off the top of my head, there could be others.

And of course, this situation was  qualifiers for the Olympics, not the WC.

Aaah yes, so it is.  Still an interesting question though. Anyone else have any others?

Not world cup qualifiers but in Copa do Brazil, matches are two legs with lowest ranked team at home in first leg. If they lose by two or more they do not bother with the return leg.

Nope. USSR refused to play the return leg in Chile before the 1974 World Cup after Pinochet's military junta took over (and did all sorts of very nasty things).

Already unhappy that an elected socialist govt had been overthrown, USSR refused to play in the national stadium in Santiago, which was where Pinochet's thugs housed, tortured and murdered their political opponents.

ESPN screened an excellent documentary "The Opposition" about that Soviet boycott of the Chile World Cup qualifier.

Part of a series of 30 documentaries to celebrate ESPN's 30th anniversary called "30 for 30" and often repeated on ESPN under the title "ESPN Documentaries" in the listings.

Pinochet insisted the game still go ahead despite the USSR team not showing up and a goal was scored against no opposition.

Imagine how many hundreds of goals Chile could have scored with no opposition team if they'd wanted.

But the Chile team gave up after scoring just one because they didn't want to be there either. Some of the Chile players had family members killed or tortured by the Pinochet regime and opposed it..

Details about the film here (scroll down):

http://espn.go.com/30for30/film?page=theopposition

Watch the 30 minute film on You Tube:

Looking at the Football Ferns, they have a lot of players in the top women's leagues around the world now and many uncapped players they can draw on if necessary who play at a good level for US universities, Aussie clubs outside the W-League etc.

I bet that Rosie White (Liverpool)  and Laura Merrin (Everton) have lots of fun with their Merseyside rivalry.

In the latest transfers in recent weeks, Betsy Hassett has signed for Werder Bremen from Amazon in Norway, Kirsty Yallop has returned to Sweden, signing for Mallbackens IF on the conclusion of the Aussie W-League at Brisbane Roar, while captain Abby Erceg has returned to her new US club Western New York Flash (coached by former All White Aaron Lines from Christchurch) from a brief spell at AS Elfen Saitama in Japan.

Football Ferns latest clubs (kept up-to-date by the redoubtable Jeremy Ruane at Ultimate NZ Soccer):

Scroll down for full list:

http://www.ultimatenzsoccer.com/FootballFerns/id11...

Australian National W-League:

England National League:

German Women's Bundesliga:

Japan National League:

Sweden National League:

Switzerland:

USA National League:

USA Universities:

The Ferns lost 1-0 to Brazil this morning in their first match in the Algarve Cup in Portugal, in their debut in the world's top annual friendly women's tournament organized by the Portuguese FA.

Previously the Ferns had only been invited to the second-tier Cyprus Cup held around the same time.

Another close result against world number seven Brazil in which Erin Naylor saved a penalty:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/nz-teams/774...

The Ferns do get to play Russia - in their next match on Saturday morning 7.30 am NZT

Russia are ranked 22 in the world.

Their final group game is against hosts Portugal who are no great shakes at women's football and are ranked 40th in the world.

Russia beat Portugal 1-0 this morning.

The other group has Canada, Denmark, Belgium and Iceland.

Iceland beat Belgium 2-1 and Denmark beat Canada 1-0

The final between the two group winners is March 10 NZT

OFFICIAL WEBSITE: RESULTS:

http://www.fpf.pt/pt-pt/Competicoes/Futebol/Femini...

TOURNAMENT NEWS (Use Google Translate)

Latest news and match reports at top, scroll down for older reports and tournament previews etc.

 http://www.fpf.pt/pt-pt/Competicoes/Futebol/Femini...

ENGLISH LANGUAGE TOURNAMENT GUIDE MAGAZINE ONLINE:

http://www.womenssoccerunited.com/algarve-cup-2016...

Last year's Algarve Cup featured a much stronger lineup and more teams with USA beating France in the final (Germany third, then in order of placing Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Brazil, Switzerland, Japan, Iceland, Portugal, China)

Good win!

Ferns lost on pens to Iceland in the play-off for 3rd / 4th.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/football-soccer/news/art...

Sounds like some more dodgy refereeing denied the Ferns a clear penalty.

The Ferns results in the Algarve Cup must be seen as pretty average.

Which is how coach Readings seems to see it too, especially their finishing.

Won't advance their world ranking of 16 after a loss to Brazil (ranked 7), a draw with Russia (ranked 22), a 1-0 win over Portugal (ranked 40) and a loss to Iceland (ranked 19).

Women's world rankings (last updated December 2015):

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/football-soccer/news/art...

Interesting how the Latin countries are so weak in women's football.

Spain is the only Spanish-speaking country in the top twenty.

Brazil is the only South American country in the top twenty (and the only Portuguese-speaking country in the top forty)

Africa is the weakest Confed in women's football with no countries in the top thirty and only two in the top fifty.

Oceania has NZ ranked 16 and PNG ranked 49.

Other Algarve Cup placings:

Denmark finished seventh following a 3-1 win over hosts Portugal and Belgium earned fifth via a 5-0 victory over Russia. Canada won the tournament after a 2-1 win over Brazil in the final.

Mark April 7th in your calendar., http://www.nzfootball.co.nz/ferns-take-on-netherlands/

trying to find out time, any coverage, etc. sounds like a good contest.

Time I can answer - 5.30am Friday NZ time, at Ijmond Stadium, the home of SC Telstar. Entry charge is 10 Euros. No mention of television coverage in Holland.

Cheers,


JR

NZF have just told me it will be live on Sky at 4.30am, replay at 1 pm. Great news!

I can't see anything in the schedule yet.   Why am I not surpised that NZF has not communicated this information?  I'm also guessing it's the morning of the 8th rather than morning of the 7th.

"We have finally had confirmation from the Netherlands and Sky. SKY will be televising the match from the Netherlands at 4.30am Friday 8 April (live) then a 1pm replay."

Is what they told me in an email. No it doesn't seem to be on the Sky schedules yet.

Sky Sport 3

nice surprise to see the football ferns on sky tomorrow. Thought they had stopped screening these games. 

Dutch too good 2 - 0. Closed us down really quickly. Fast winger scored twice.

Excluding the win against PNG...

We've played some good opposition and had some good results, but we've won 2 games in the last 19. Is Reading's time up?

Did you catch it? If so how did we look?  Were the netherlands just too good or did we do a Nix?

Yeh I watched it (thanks MySky and a day off work). As above, they shut our midfield down really quickly, meaning in the first half we struggled to get any ball to Amber Hearn. Twice quite early they chipped it in behind Ali Riley for their quick strongly built winger to score.
The Ferns were better organised in second half and had more possession, but Dutch defence and midfield didn't allow many chances. Poor free kicks from Kirsty Yallop wasted a few set pieces. Couldn't get in behind their defence. Netherlands deserved it.

Tough group and Australia got a  stiff one as well

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_at_the_20...

Seems to me that the Ferns will probably finish third in their group behind 1.USA, 2.France (and ahead of the average Colombia).

They will find it difficult this time to qualify for the second round as one of the two best third-placed teams.

Mainly because China and Australia are likely to finish third in the other two groups and are strong sides.

Plus, the weakest teams in those two groups (South Africa ranked 54th and Zimbabwe ranked 95th) are much worse than Colombia (24th) in NZ's group and likely to concede bucket loads of goals.

I'm picking the other two groups to finish:

1.Brazil

2.Sweden

3.China

(4.South Africa are piss poor and ranked 54th in the world, so China will score a lot against them)

and:

1.Germany

2.Canada

3.Australia

(4.Zimbabwe are even worse than South Africa and are ranked 95th in the world, so the third-placed team will score heaps against them)

Yikes!

USA thrashed Colombia 7-0 and 3-0 in friendlies earlier this month...

Last July, Colombia beat Canada in the semi-final of the Pan-American Games played in Canada and finished runner-up to Brazil.(Canada only finished 4th). Colombia's current world ranking of 24 is their highest ever.

The Pan-American Games women's football is contested by the senior sides of South American and CONCACAF nations.

I really hope the FF do well at the tournament.  I just feel our team thinks they are better then they actually are.  They talk a good game and have loft ambitions but they don't really back it up.  I want them to prove me wrong.