New Zealand Women's U-17s

I will say the second half feature almost no attempt to play short. But the first half was a mix, and the Mexico first half was full of short passes. 

Our girls really redeemed themselves in the Spain game I thought.

They held their own until the 80th minute and just tired late in the game.

It's taking them a while to find their feet at this level.

Let's face it, this NZ side have only ever played three decent teams in their entire time together from before the Oceania qualifying up to this tournament, namely in the three friendlies they were heavily beaten in on their China tour (5-0, 6-0 and 3-0 losses wasn't it to Japan, China and Canada?)

Our level of domestic women's football isn't great and we're up against countries who are obviously putting a lot of resources into women's football and have large populations and player bases, and who play a lot of tough games in qualifying and in friendlies in Europe and CONCACAF.

Not true of Jordan however, with the only thing going for them being home advantage, so hopefully we'll see a more complete and dominant performance in that game on the weekend.

A positive is that there's a few players in this Young Football Ferns side who look to have the technical ability to push on through the age groups and make the senior Football Ferns one day. And that after all is the ultimate purpose of national age group sides like this.

I've always found that NZ male and female players are generally late developers because of our low standard of domestic football. Witness the single win by a NZ u-17 women's side at World Cups in their history in 14 games so far (and that was when we hosted it in the very first World Cup). By the time they make the u-20 level, our u-20 women's teams seem more competitive on the world platform. And the Football Ferns can even beat top teams like Brazil and China on occasion.

At senior level we're ranked well above Mexico (18th to their 27th) and only a few places behind Spain (who are currently 14th - we were 17th until the latest rankings and Spain the same they are now).

Jordan are ranked 54th at senior level - although they are the highest-ranked team in the entire Middle East and Gulf, ahead of Iran and Israel, the next highest ranked teams. Strangely Israel is not at all progressive when it comes to women's sports (and women's rights in other fields too such as divorce laws - it's easier for a woman to divorce a man in Muslim countries than in Israel) and only formed a women's national football team in 1997 because FIFA and UEFA required it. Iran are ranked higher than Israel in women's football ! The Israeli government faces a lot of pressure from religious Jews and usually caves in, so won't fund women's football or change it's archaic divorce laws etc. I have Jewish friends who are always complaining about this stuff and won't live in Israel because of it.

was the second game the same keeper?

'Twas

she was a tad better then?

I thought within the context of the age group and gender our keeper had an excellent game.

Sometimes what happens when fans are critical of female keepers there is a lack of acknowledgement of some of the fundamental differences between male and female players.

Males are stronger and have more powerful reactions than the female keepers and on top of that are considerably taller.

So we have a 16 or 17 year old female keeper who is no taller than 5'8" tall with a short level of experience and lacking the stronger, more powerful types of reactions in goal for us. The expectations we fans place on her exceed what reality should dictate.

I think she was close to motm for me, one save in particular was brilliant.

15-year-old

Anna Leat

Date of Birth 26 Jun 2001
http://www.fifa.com/fifa-tournaments/players-coach...

Well if she is 15 then her efforts relative to female goalkeepers is brilliant, especially in the game against Spain. Absolutely superb.

finished on a high, beating Jordan 5-0. 

Can this topic get renamed to New Zealand Women's U17s please, as per the other NZ age group topics so it is easier to find, and given the same respect other national reps get, since they are off to Uruguay for the WC in a couple of weeks.

Sad that nobody had anything interesting to say about these girls during their qualifying tournament last year.

Big South Island presence.

Yeah, South Island representation is a weird contrast to the men's game  - also, following on from Callun Elliot, more good work from the Paul Ifill Academies - with Amelia and ex academy player Hannah making this squad. 

How have they been looking in the lead-up?

Difficult to say. Creamed the OFC qualifying - but the Pacific nations are poor in women's football - and they haven't had any other competitive games to judge them by. First clue we'll get is when they play Canada pre-tournament in Uruguay..Tuesday week I think, but have to check that date.

I think the warm up game v Canada is either today or tomorrow. Group opponents and  hosts Uruguay beat South Africa 3 - 0 in a warm up game yesterday.

Beat Canada 2-1 in warm up game

Young ferns kick off their first game 8:00am NZ time Wednesday v Finland

Best of luck girls.

The Finn's are giving us an absolute lesson on how to play football.

20 minutes in and we've had less than 20% possession.

I don't know if I can watch any more of this. A keeper launching it long every time, long throws into the box and a corner which was played back 30 yards to then be hoofed into the box.

NZ go 1-0 up, goal from Kelli Brown

certainly two different approaches. Fin left back decent

At the half we've had 6 shots to 2, Finland are yet to have a shot on target and we're 1-0 up. Who gives a shark if it isn't pretty? Its a World Cup.

Lots of backward passes by Finland though.

NZ pressing well and going direct.

We're very well organised defensively. From what I've seen (flicking between tabs at work) we're comfortably the better side.

pity we have the odd unnecessary agricultural hoof at the back. Both keepers decent

Well done team! Very determined performance

Very good win for the girls. Some quality shots on goal by us. There goal keeper kept them in the match with some big saves. Could have been 2-0 easily. Strong defence also. Just goes to show possesion is not everything.

good win. endorse the shoot in sight theory if you have the players to give it a nudge

I agree we had some nervous moments early and struggled to keep the ball. But as the game went on we got stronger and our press was brilliant. An absolute tactical masterclass from Leon an the coaching staff. The players carried it out brilliantly. When was the last time we beat a European team in world cup football. And well done the Kiwi 12th man ably supported by the home fans.

The U20s beat Switzerland 2-1 in 2012

For the U17s this was their 3rd ever win at a World Cup Finals (the 6th they've been at)

And a win against European opposition is not to be sniffed at.

I see Ghana pumped Uruguay 5-0 today. Given they are hosts so didn't need to qualify we should have a pretty good chance against against them. They also had their keeped stretched off.

Just looked at Ghana's qualfication. They had a bye in their first roung. Beat Gambia 7-1 on aggregrate. and then beat Dijbouti 19-0 on aggregrate to qualify. Now you might wonder how did Dijbouti get to the third round of qualfying. Well, they drew Libya in the first round but Libya pulled out before the games were played. Then drew Tunisia in the second round, and they also pulled out. Amazing. 

Uruguay did play in the South American qualifiers though and would've qualified on merit, so they did have 7 meaningful games in which they only conceded 5 goals so surprised at their Ghana result.

Re: the NZ game, given the possession stats, I did wonder if it was Heraf-ball as it is meant to be played.  The stats did show us having more shots and the better shots.  There were times I was thinking keep the ball, pass sideways or backwards if you need to, just keep it.

Definitely what Heraf wanted to do.

Even one of the Finn's goal kicks went backwards. From edge of goal area to player on goal line (outside of penalty area).

I disagree. I thought the girls played a really good high pressing game. Most of the shots we had were from turnover ball in there half of the field. We were well structured in defence but it wasn't a 10 players behind the ball mindset. We did lump the ball forward a fair bit, but you got to remember these girls are only 16 years old. And sending the ball forward regularly allowed us to deploy the high press without giving away possession needlessly in front of our own goal. Looked like there intention was to get the ball forward quick and be direct in attack.

Isnt that how Heraf wanted us to play?..

Good defensive shape, minimise risks/mistakes, keep ball in the opposition half and force them into mistakes 

Yes see your point. But possession based tiki taka type football doesn't always work either. You look at the last world cup. Spain and Germany exited early trying to play that style, Possession is not always king if you are constantly passing the ball backwards and not creating scoring chances. Quick counterattacking teams like France or set piece specialists like England did better. But in the end I guess you have to play to your strengths and have the ability to vary your game depending on the opposition. 

A really disciplined and committed performance. Would have been great to see more composure on the ball at times, but we could have 2-3 more as well so overall have to be very happy

I was eluding to a solid defensive structure, high pressure style of play that Heraf seemed to like. Not possession based football