Following the Ford Football Ferns 0-0 draw with Thailand in Christchurch Apollo Projects Stadium in the team’s second match of the two game series, we caught up with head coach Jitka Klimková on what she took from the performance and the team’s time together in Ōtautahi. 

Jitka, obviously a bit of a disappointing result tonight, but what do you take from these two games in Christchurch? 

Yeah, we wanted more today. We played really good football on Saturday and wanted to see more of the things that worked against Thailand. With this game, I have to give Thailand credit, they really took on their game analysis and review and were more prepared for us. But that should not stop us with our goals that we had to work on, our strengths, our defending shape and our aggressive 1v1 defending which we, specifically in the first half… 

...It was obvious the first and second half was pretty different. In second half we created 30 crosses. In first half we created 18 crosses so you can see the huge difference between the first and second half. We wanted to get to the final third in the end of the day we did but this is something that this team is working on and we need to keep working on our quality with our decisions and executions.


You had about 22 shots today. Was the team just unlucky tonight? 

I wouldn't say unlucky. I think those games are part of the football. When you are creating, it's our job to find a way to score. And we are the team that, in 2024, our priority is to get our quality [in the final third] better.

We scored 32 goals in Samoa, we scored four goals against Thailand in our first game and we just need to be more consistent with our quality. We can execute, we can make good decisions so for us now the key is to keep working on those things and tidy it up so we can be more consistent.

 

There were nearly 10,000 fans across the two games here in Christchurch. What does it mean to you and to the players to have that kind of support on a Tuesday night at Apollo Projects Stadium?

Yeah, it's unbelievable what it means to our players, to see them play on the home soil. There's always a hunger to keep inspiring the nation and the girls and boys to start playing or keep playing football. Everybody around the world is coming back home and seeing their families and seeing their friends and seeing them in the stands and having 10,000 people watching us live, that's what we're living for. 


The Olympics are coming up soon. Has this camp been helpful, following the qualifying tournament in Samoa, to start finalising your thinking for obviously a smaller squad selection for when it comes to that tournament? 

Obviously this will be a huge competition. Players know they are competing for their spot at the Olympics so it was helpful to train together, it was helpful to have two international games, so every step that we are together is preparation for the Olympics. And yes some players bubbled up and some are leaving the camp with a lot of homework to have and keep progressing their football.

Article added: Wednesday 10 April 2024