With all the focus having been on negative stuff around the Football Ferns management, I think we've all forgotten that we have a major international women's tournament with NZ participating starting in one month.
FIFA u-20 Women's World Cup France August 6 - 25
FIFA tournament homepage:
https://www.fifa.com/u20womensworldcup/index.html
Match schedule:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_FIFA_U-20_Women...
https://resources.fifa.com/image/upload/fu20wwc201...
NZ in a group with hosts France, the Netherlands and Ghana.
So, an awesome group.
I'm half Dutch and I like France so it will be great for me.
In fact I'm going to open some banter with my Dutch cousins on Facebook about it now !
Women's football is on a high in Holland since they won the Women's Euros last year and the men's team crash-dived in World Cup qualifying (men's club football was so mediocre that Ajax was knocked out in the qualifying round for the Europa League).
This tournament will be great especially following on if France win the World Cup in Russia.
The French FA have taken the unusual step of holding the entire tournament in one region, Brittany.
No doubt to boost women's football in a region that is sometimes considered a bit behind the rest of France; and the seaside venues are picturesque.
Stadia used are all of a capacity of only 2000 - 9500
NZ play the Netherlands on the opening day of the tournament August 6 NZT as the curtain-raiser to France vs Ghana at Vannes, the biggest stadium used for the tournament (9500) in the seaside town of 56,000 100 km from Nantes.
The Breton name for Vannes is Gwened which sounds Welsh and is in fact closely related (common Celtic language roots; Breton is most closely related to Cornish).
Breton is the regional language of Brittany and the only regional language of France which has survived to any extent since the years of nationalism since Napoleon (more than 200,000 speak it today, down from one million in 1950).
Brittany was settled by Celts from Britain about 1300 years ago so they have ancient British heritage and are not related to the ancient Gauls, the original Celtic people of France.
NZ's second game is also at Vannes against France on August 9
Our final group game is August 13 vs. Ghana at Concarneau, a fishing port of 20,000.
(The Breton name is "Konk-Kerne" meaning "Bay of Cornwall" - it was founded by Cornish settlers 1300 years ago)
Australia failed to qualify, so we're the only team from Down Under.