Women’s World Cup 2023 team guides part one: New Zealand
This article is part of the Guardian’s Women’s World Cup 2023 Experts’ Network, a cooperation between some of the best media organisations from the 32 countries who qualified. theguardian.com is running previews from two countries each day in the run-up to the tournament kicking off on 20 July.
OverviewNew Zealand’s top footballers are facing a similar predicament to their world champion rugby counterparts – entering the biggest tournament of their lives on home soil on the back of a run of poor form.
Amazingly, the Black Ferns turned that around in Auckland eight months ago to retain their rugby crown but no one is suggesting the Football Ferns will achieve anything remotely similar. Their Fifa world ranking has slipped to its lowest ever point of 26 from a high of 16 in 2015. Making the knockout rounds for the first time from a group containing Norway, the Philippines and Switzerland is the ambition but the omens are not good.
In the first 14 games after Jitka Klimkova was appointed national coach in 2021 New Zealand won just one, leaking 35 goals while scoring just five. It is a grim record far removed from Klimkova’s promise on her appointment that she would not be depending on the traditional playing style of New Zealand teams: tough defensively and then relying on the long ball to score goals. “Whoever we are up against, New Zealand will be a team that plays to win,” she told Fifa.com.
New Zealand qualified automatically from the Oceania region as the host nation (alongside Australia) but as if a goal drought and defensive lapses have not been bad enough, key players, including midfielders Olivia Chance, Betsy Hassett, Ria Percival, Annalie Longo and defender CJ Bott have suffered injuries that have sidelined them for
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