The OFC U-17 and U-20 Women’s Championships will run in conjunction with each other from April 9-14 at Centre Park in Mangere with the winners of each progressing to September’s FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup in Azerbaijan and August’s FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in Japan respectively.
Junior Football Ferns coach McFarland has been able to name an experienced line-up featuring five players capped at senior level and another, goalkeeper Erin Nayler, who was a member of New Zealand’s squad for the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup but has yet to play an ‘A’ international.
“It’s great to have that sort of experience in the team and if we book a place at the U-20 World Cup we’ll likely have players coming straight off the back of an Olympic campaign,” McFarland says.
“The squad is already pretty well integrated with the locally-based portion of the senior squad and we hope that integration will help us develop more of this squad into players that can step up at the very highest level.”
Naturally, Temple’s Young Football Ferns squad can’t yet boast any senior internationals but have already shown undoubted promise with series wins over Australia and Argentina, and feature two 14-year-olds and two 15-year-olds among the 20 players named.
“We’ve got some pretty positive results under our belt already and are happy with the way the players and team as a whole are coming on, not just for the qualifiers but for the long term as well,” Temple says.
“But it’s important we keep working hard to maintain momentum and don’t get complacent. We’ve got a talented group of players drawn from National Talent Centres across the country and there are still others nipping at their heels providing healthy competition.”
To view all the OFC U-17 Women’s Championship squad lists click here
To view all the OFC U-20 Women’s Championship squad lists click here
Story courtesy of New Zealand Football.
For more on New Zealand Football visit www.nzfootball.co.nz

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