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Posted October 24, 2021 19:24 · last edited October 24, 2021 19:25

AlfStamp
Rusty Dunks
coochiee
Our women footballers seem to be playing at a pretty good level club-wise - so why do they play so shark at the international level? 

Genuine question. Is it a lack of depth? Or over-estimation of abilities? Poor coaching? Something else?

There are a couple of things here. We had a period where we were genuinely in the worlds top 20. I think we even got as high on the FIFA rankings as 13th once? 
That period was just before the Woman's game in the more recognised football countries took off.  That growth of football in the more recognised football countries probably started about 6-7 years ago. The big problem has been not that our coaching abilities of girls and women got worse but the sheer battle of far bigger numbers playing overseas and the money thrown at the game. So like any pyramid, our base is not as wide as the other countries now and in turn the quality making it to the top of the Pyramid are of smaller numbers than the other countries. 
We benefited for a long time from the growth of girls football in schools, that advantage has now been overtaken by what we see going on in bigger football countries growth in numbers and money spent.
I dont know what the answer is but right now its a tricky period for us. I think as our older National team players are phased out we might see a difficult period results wise where the newer players lack of experience will appear to slow any progress down. The new players will need some time to add experience to ability. Coaching wise at grass roots Im not sure what more can be done, essentially the quality of coaching for girls is pretty decent and the pressure goes on for some NZ centric innovative way to take it up another level.
I guess its easy for people to criticise based on results etc but context matters and looking for solutions will do more good than pointing fingers because a lot of the difficulty in results is in some ways mostly out of our hands.

If you look at the talented young group now coming through with the mens U20s/Olywhites/AWs, nearly all of them are either grounded in the Weenix Academy or Ole. The high technical ability of these players is self evident. The technical ability of most of the Ferns is poor, so it's route one football.

So surely getting more girls to take the Weenix/Ole path can only be a good thing. The new Nix Womens team being a huge part of that. Maybe it's time to consign the FFDP to the bin, and make greater Wgtn the hub for NZ women's football, not Auckland??

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Unknown editor edited October 24, 2021 19:25
AlfStamp
Rusty Dunks
coochiee
Our women footballers seem to be playing at a pretty good level club-wise - so why do they play so shark at the international level? 

Genuine question. Is it a lack of depth? Or over-estimation of abilities? Poor coaching? Something else?

There are a couple of things here. We had a period where we were genuinely in the worlds top 20. I think we even got as high on the FIFA rankings as 13th once? 
That period was just before the Woman's game in the more recognised football countries took off.  That growth of football in the more recognised football countries probably started about 6-7 years ago. The big problem has been not that our coaching abilities of girls and women got worse but the sheer battle of far bigger numbers playing overseas and the money thrown at the game. So like any pyramid, our base is not as wide as the other countries now and in turn the quality making it to the top of the Pyramid are of smaller numbers than the other countries. 
We benefited for a long time from the growth of girls football in schools, that advantage has now been overtaken by what we see going on in bigger football countries growth in numbers and money spent.
I dont know what the answer is but right now its a tricky period for us. I think as our older National team players are phased out we might see a difficult period results wise where the newer players lack of experience will appear to slow any progress down. The new players will need some time to add experience to ability. Coaching wise at grass roots Im not sure what more can be done, essentially the quality of coaching for girls is pretty decent and the pressure goes on for some NZ centric innovative way to take it up another level.
I guess its easy for people to criticise based on results etc but context matters and looking for solutions will do more good than pointing fingers because a lot of the difficulty in results is in some ways mostly out of our hands.

If you look at the talented young group now coming through with the mens U20s/Olywhites/AWs, nearly all of them are either grounded in the Weenix Academy or Ole. The high technical ability of these players is self evident. The technical ability of most of the Ferns is poor, so it's route one football.

So surely getting more girls to take the Weenix/Ole path can only be a good thing. The new Nix Womens team being a huge part of that. Maybe it's time to consign the FFDP to the bin, and make greater Wgtn the base for NZ women's football, not Auckland??