What other countries are doing

[Vic]

Just a place to collect info on what other countries are doing to grow the women's game.

NEW ZEALAND

- improved play: lost 0-3 and 0-5 at home to Canada in 2007, rebounded and last two games against Canada in 2008 and 2009 were 1-1 ties, as well as a draw with Japan 2-2 in Olympics in 2008 and tying France and Canada and a win over the Netherlands in Cyprus last year.

- playing abroad: four players on the Ottawa Fury W League team in 2009, WPS, Women's Bundesliga, NCAA.

- modified playing style: “I think it’s about showing that we‘re entertaining, we’re not a kick and chase team. We definitely get the ball down and look to play and that’s something that we didn’t do before. It’s something that we’ve worked on for the last few years, and especially under John Herdman, and it’s looking good at the moment.”

- promoting the women's game: "Females In Football" is a national promotion campaign, including the national association partnering with the regional associations to run a 75-event NZF "Girl's and Women's Football Week" this entire week with school sessions, girls festivals with Football Ferns appearances and prizes, free women's coaching and referee courses, open training sessions, SSG tournaments, etc.

- they are working on their 6-12 pathway.

- hosting the U17 last year was part of a coordinated effort to change the social culture to become more positive for girls soccer.

SWITZERLAND

- the Swiss have 20,000 women and girls playing versus our number of near 400,000

- the Swiss established a "Women for Women's Football" Council in 2007 with established prominent women from politics, culture and entertainment to increase the visibility of women's soccer and promote sponsorship.

- Swiss girls and women train frequently with boys.

- the main engine of the Swiss program is the Credit Suisse Football Academy which selects ten players from the U14 league per year into a program where players meet six times per week and undergo intensive training in technique, fitness and tactics, as well as personal development, education and personal career planning. They selections are thorough and based on technique, coordinative skills, speed and behavior and include interviews and medical check-ups. The players live with host families during the week and only return on Friday night back for training and play with their club teams.

[lensois]

The success of the U-17 WC in NZ also meant they received some decent money from the NZ government as well as better allocation from the federation. Their U-17 team also plays in the national women's league as a way of giving them regular competition and having them play together on a regular, but relatively inexpensive basis. There is a pretty good continuity of coaches. The current U-20s HC was the assistant for a few years under John Herdman who is the senior team HC and was also the U-20s HC for the last WC. The current U-20 AC was the U-17 head coach at the last WC so those players have some continuity in that regard.

Vic mentioned the Females in Football, it's actually Females in Football Week in NZ which is being put on in combination with the two friendlies the senior women are playing against Australia in Auckland. A look at some of what they're doing http://www.nzfootball.co.nz/index.php?id=181

One other thing is that NZ have used some of their promising youth players--Annalie Longo, Rosie White, Hannah Wall and most recently Hannah Wilkinson--in selected senior events to give them some experience at that level. The feeling is they have a solid foundation of younger players who will help them increase their competitiveness at major events so they want to provide them with as much experience as possible to positively affect their development.

[Soccer9]

More and more U17 WNTs are active around the world and this will make it even tougher for us in future years. Just look at some of the teams that participated in the U17 Euro championship in order to qualify for the 2010 WC in T&T... some countries that you would never think of: http://www.uefa.com/MultimediaFiles/Download/competitions/WUnder17/77/76/34/777634_DOWNLOAD.pdf that .

Personally, I am really curious to see what T&T do in September with Pellerud really trying to hype things up in his press releases and other interviews. Check this latest one... will see if it there is major improvement with T&T or just lots of talk!

*************************************

Pellerud: We are in it to win

Wednesday, 10 February 2010 08:50 Shari John (T&T Guardian)

Technical Director of Women’s Football in T&T, Even Pellerud, made it clear yesterday that T&T will not be entering the Fifa U-17 Women’s World Cup just to participate.

He made the statement at a press conference to launch the U-17 Women’s Four Nation Tournament at the Hyatt Regency, Port of Spain.

According to the Norwegian, who transformed the Canadian women national team to one of the football powerhouses in Concacaf, explained that T&T will be in it to win.

“The U-17s will not only be there to participate, we will be there to win,” said Pellerud. “When September ends, and people tell us, well you didn’t win any games, but you played well’, that will make me very unhappy, that is to me the opposite of why we are here. We are here to win games.

We are not here to hear that we played well, because that is a recreational attitude, that is not a winning attitude.”

The U-17 coach boasted that his local players who have been training on a consistent basis together for the past year, are super fit, and even though they may have started to play at a late age, he is very optimistic.

He also explained that in order to win when the World Cup comes, his team must learn to lose, and learn from its mistakes. “To me it’s not enough to be in a World Cup, we are there to score goals and win games.

But for us to do that, we need to learn to win, and in order to win, you have to learn to lose as well on the road and that’s where this tournament plays such a major role in our preparations,” said Pellerud.

“Some coaches and politicians will be afraid of staging games because they will ask are you ready, but how will you know if you are ready if you don’t compete in major tournaments?

That is the only way to learn this game.” Twenty-five players have been chosen for a pre-tournament camp and Pellurud explained that the team, which will compete in the tournament, will be the strongest that T&T has fielded so far.

T&T SQUAD

Keri Myers, Saundra Baron, Khadisha Debesette, Camille Borneo, Rehana Omardeen, Annette Mims, Tineisha Cobham, Shalette Alexander, Patrice Vincent, Jamila Derrick, Shante Helwig, Camille Charles, Khadidra Bebesette, Victoria Swift, Jessica De Leon, Kayla Taylor, Liana Hinds, Patrice Campbell, Kedisha Castillo, Brianna Ryce, Anique Walker, Nykosi Simmons, Diarra Simmons, Shakirah Salandy.

Even Pellerud (coach), Jinelle James (manager), Richard Hood (assistant coach).

[Vic]

Pellerud's roster:

Keri Myers, Saundra Baron, Khadisha Debesette, Camille Borneo, Rehana Omardeen, Annette Mims, Tineisha Cobham, Shalette Alexander, Patrice Vincent, Jamila Derrick, Shante Helwig, Camille Charles, Khadidra Bebesette, Victoria Swift, Jessica De Leon, Kayla Taylor, Liana Hinds, Patrice Campbell, Kedisha Castillo, Brianna Ryce, Anique Walker, Nykosi Simmons, Diarra Simmons, Shakirah Salandy.

American

Canadian

[Vic]

The Ferns and the Swiss are both top-end loading their women's money into their youth programs. We did it almost a decade ago when Pellerud arrived and reaped the proceeds for a long time, perhaps it's time again. We now have a good crop of mid-to-late twentysomethings that we haven't had for a decade. If we develop and mix in some young talent we could strike a good balance and get setup well for the future.