Women’s World Cup: New Zealand Takes Aim at Another First
New Zealand, the World Cup’s co-host, has an opportunity to take one other massive step ahead on Tuesday.
Days after it earned the primary World Cup victory within the crew’s historical past, New Zealand is aware of a win over the Philippines in Wellington would successfully guarantee that the Football Ferns, because the crew is understood, will attain the knockout rounds for the primary time.
In Tuesday’s different video games, Colombia and South Korea will turn out to be the final of the 32 groups to take the sphere, and Norway — crushed by New Zealand in its opener — will attempt to proper itself towards Switzerland.
Colombia vs. South Korea
Colombia is coming off a robust efficiency within the Copa América Championship, the place it beat Argentina within the semifinals and fell to Brazil within the closing, 1-0. Those outcomes counsel a readiness to contend on the world stage.
But that competitiveness might have gone too far in a latest exhibition towards Ireland: That match was referred to as off after 20 minutes for what the Irish labeled “overly physical” play from the Colombians. Colombia rejected that characterization and defended its type; it mentioned the Irish merely “preferred not to continue playing.”
Colombia will face South Korea, the runner-up to China within the 2022 Asian Cup, on Tuesday in Sydney, Australia, (10 p.m. Monday Eastern time). The South Koreans have made it to the knockout levels as soon as in three earlier World Cup appearances, in 2015. Four years in the past, the Koreans misplaced all three of their video games.
New Zealand vs. Philippines
New Zealand’s gamers shocked many individuals — together with themselves — by upsetting Norway, 1-0, within the opening match of the World Cup.
Now, the Ferns discover themselves in new territory: in a positive place for a path past the group stage, a checkpoint not reached in 5 earlier journeys to the event.
The largest impediment to advancing, in reality, could also be behind them. Norway entered the event twelfth in FIFA rankings, whereas the Philippines is forty sixth. New Zealand is twenty sixth, however now using a wave of so-called Fern Fever, and searching ahead to a different night time in entrance of a pleasant crowd.
The Philippines misplaced, 2-0, to Switzerland in its World Cup debut. Its crew attracts closely from the United States — 18 gamers on the squad’s 23-women roster, in reality, had been born in America — and makes no excuses about that.
“I don’t really care where they’re born,” the crew’s Australian coach, Alen Stajcic, mentioned. “If they have Philippines in their heart and in their blood, and they’re good at football, then they’re eligible for our team.
“They all play for their flag, they all play for their country, they all play for the people in the Philippines, wherever they reside.”
Switzerland vs. Norway
Norway is trying to bounce again from its opening loss and doubtless wants a win towards Switzerland, after which one other towards the Philippines, to make sure it goes via to the knockouts.
The Norwegians are led by Ada Hegerberg, the 28-year-old striker — and former world participant of the yr — who sat out the 2019 World Cup in protest of her federation’s remedy of girls’s soccer. Hegerberg, among the best gamers within the sport, was absent from the nationwide crew for 5 years earlier than returning for the European Championship final summer time. But she was surprisingly ineffective towards New Zealand, and that gained’t do towards the Swiss.
Switzerland dominated the Philippines of their opener, outshooting their opponents by 17-3. They are unlikely to have the identical benefit over the Norwegians. Ramona Bachmann, who performs her membership soccer for Paris St.-Germain, was the standout participant in her crew’s opening win. She will want the same efficiency as we speak to maintain Switzerland shifting ahead.
When the United States beat China in a penalty shootout to win the 1999 Women’s World Cup, a younger Ali Riley was one of many 90,185 followers in attendance. Riley, 11 on the time, appeared on as Brandi Chastain scored the decisive penalty, stripped off her jersey after which fell to her knees in triumph.
Twenty-four years later, Riley is taking part in in her personal World Cup. Despite being born and raised in California, Riley, 35, has represented New Zealand internationally since her teenagers. (Her father, John, is from Christchurch.) But having ridden the wave of development in ladies’s soccer herself, she is now hoping to see her crew assist her rugby-loving nation fall for the game the best way the United States crew turbocharged it in America with its efficiency in 1999.
“If these little girls in New Zealand feel inspired to pick up a sport — I hope it’s soccer, of course — from watching the World Cup, when the best players in the world and the best teams in the world are in their backyard, I think that’s the way that we can actually change something for women and for young girls in New Zealand,” Riley mentioned final month in an interview in Los Angeles earlier than departing for the event. “So that’s my dream.”
The basis of that dream was laid final Thursday, when New Zealand surprised Norway, 1-0, to submit its first win in six journeys to the World Cup.
During her post-match interview, Riley, holding again tears, made positive to flash her arms towards the digicam, clearly exhibiting her painted fingernails — one hand within the mild blue and pink of the Trans Pride flag, and the opposite the rainbow colours of the L.G.B.T.Q. Pride flag — as she declared, “anything is possible.”
Riley’s nails had been each a present of assist — a neighborhood newspaper declared her a “straight, gay icon” — and likewise one in all minor rebel.
FIFA banned rainbow “One Love” armbands forward of final yr’s males’s World Cup in Qatar, saying they might be thought-about provocations towards the host nation and a violation of FIFA’s uniform rules. FIFA tried to string a distinct needle for the ladies’s event, permitting multicolored “Unite for Inclusion” armbands in an occasion that features dozens of homosexual gamers.
Riley’s nail polish, then, was a purposeful workaround.
Rachel Allison, a sociology professor at Mississippi State and the writer of “Kicking Center: Gender and the Selling of Women’s Professional Soccer,” mentioned that what set Riley’s interview other than different viral moments, equivalent to Abby Wambach kissing her then-wife following the United States’ 2015 Women’s World Cup win, was that Riley’s actions had been premeditated.
“Equality and inclusion are central values in the women’s soccer community,” Allison mentioned. “To see a player like Ali Riley clearly knowing that she’s about to become visible through captaining her team and plan ahead to make this statement is incredibly courageous.”
Lise Klaveness doesn’t pull punches. It will not be her type. To some, that could be a drawback. To Klaveness, a former nationwide crew participant who’s now the president of Norway’s soccer federation, it’s simply who she is.
So she is going to needle FIFA about its moral conflicts, concerning the remedy of migrant employees on World Cup initiatives, concerning the rights of girls and homosexual folks. She is joyful, if wanted, to say it straight to the (principally male) officers at FIFA gatherings, demanding that they, as soccer’s leaders, maintain the game — and themselves — to a better ethical and moral normal.
“Politically it made me a bit more exposed, and maybe people want to tell me, ‘Who do you think you are?’ in different ways,” Klaveness, 42, mentioned in an interview earlier than the Women’s World Cup. Openly elevating questions on human rights and good governance, she mentioned, additionally “came with a price.”
She additionally believes her positions replicate these of her federation, and her nation. And she says she is not going to cease urgent them. “I’m very motivated,” she mentioned, “and the day I’m not, I’ll quit. I have nothing to lose.”
