Football Ferns: Win, loss, and now a must-win
The Philippines take their turn to make history in the World Cup, harrying the Football Ferns to a shock defeat and making next Sunday’s match everything to play for
Oh how quickly dreams can crash back to earth.
The Football Ferns were flying high after shocking world number 12 Norway on Thursday, beating them 1-0 for their first-ever FIFA Women’s World Cup win.
And then in a game they were tipped to win, against world number 46, the Philippines, making their World Cup debut, the Ferns dominated possession but couldn’t make it count.
Sarina Bolden from the Philippines opened the scoring in the 23rd minute, despite the Ferns sitting at 70 percent of possession.
New Zealand had 13 shots to the Philippines’ four, but the Philippines made theirs count and won 1-0.
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Attending their first World Cup, the Philippines only had one shot on target – but one was all they needed.
Bolden’s shot ricocheted into goalkeeper Vic Esson’s hands, but it was too powerful, Esson couldn’t hold on to it, and the Philippines were ecstatic.
The last time these two teams met was last September, with Bolden scoring in that game as well. But unlike this evening, her goal wasn’t enough then, as the Ferns recovered to win 2-1.
The Ferns had a few chances in the first half, keeping the Philippines defence busy but their first reason to celebrate wasn’t until the second half.
A Jacqui Hand header that found the back of the net in the 68th minute was controversially disallowed by VAR, a hint of Hannah Wilkinson’s shoulder being deemed offside in her assist.
The Philippines goalkeeper, Olivia McDaniel, was a standout for her side, especially in the last 10 minutes of the game as New Zealand got desperate, throwing everything at her. She was awarded player of the match for her efforts in goal.
The crowd of 32,357 in Wellington had a good number of Philippines fans, but the Kiwi supporters made themselves heard, booing and counting down McDaniel when they believed she was wasting time.
All isn’t over at this tournament for the Football Ferns.
New Zealand can’t lose their game against Switzerland on Sunday. If they win, they make it out of Group A and onto the rounds of 16 for the first time. If it’s a draw, it will come down to goal difference, as Norway faces the Philippines at the same time.
The Kiwis are sitting second on the table right now, thanks to goal difference – losing by just one, whereas the Philippines lost to Switzerland by two earlier in the week. Switzerland sit top of the table, with one win and one point from their draw with Norway.
Tuesday night was a situation the Ferns weren’t used to being in.
After the pure joy of the win over Norway, they were in the unique situation of being favourites, and winners.
The whole team was insistent that they were back to business as usual before this game. It didn’t seem like the Ferns came out too confidently in the first half and they reset for the second half.
At half-time, Liv Chance came on and was true to her name, creating many chances in attack but none of the Ferns’ attempts paid off.
Football Ferns defender Katie Bowen told Sky Sport after the game she was “massively disappointed”.
“I felt that we had chances, we had most of the possession, but we just weren’t clinical enough,” she said.
“First half, we got bullied, second half we did better, but it just wasn’t there for us tonight.”
Coach Jitka Klimková couldn’t wipe the smile off her face after the Norway game, but there wasn’t a glimpse of a smile to be seen after this defeat.
“We were dominating the game again, we were keeping the ball, I think too many unforced turnovers, we haven’t seen those turnovers in our game against Norway,” she told Sky Sport.
Focus now has to switch again, as the Ferns have four days before a do-or-die match against Switzerland on Sunday. If they lose, their World Cup journey ends.
“There’s still another game so we can’t rest on this for too long, we’ve got to pick ourselves up because we have to get three points in the next game,” Bowen said.
“This one does hurt after such a great performance against Norway, we’re going to have to look at this and see where we weren’t clinical enough and didn’t execute our game plan.”
Klimková knows how hard the Ferns fought until the final whistle.
“I have to say, it’s so heart-breaking for everybody in this team…I saw on our faces, we were fighting till the end but it was not enough. We were missing that little piece in our execution.”
The Ferns now travel back to Auckland for rest, recovery, and analysis, before making their way to Dunedin for their final group-stage match.
