The Ford Football Ferns tonight take on Korea Republic for the second of their two-game series, with bravery and goals at the forefront of their minds.

After going down 1-0 in Saturday’s game, a closely fought contest in front of a 5000-strong crowd at Christchurch’s Orangetheory Stadium, playmaker Liv Chance is as keen as anyone to finish 2022 with a win.

Goals are the order of the day she says, having come the closest to scoring for the Ferns on Saturday, only to be denied by the upright. It’s an area team is working hard to continue making progress in, she says.  

“As a team, it's about making sure we can continue to create those opportunities. I think we created more than we have in the past. So you’ve got to take the positives from that and build on the performance.

“If you’ve looked at us in the past 10 years you'd say, ‘Oh yeah, they're great fighters’,” she notes.

“We work hard, we defend well, we block shots, but that side of the game [goal scoring] is something we need to progress and to inspire, you know, to make it attractive football that people in New Zealand want to watch.

“I think it's huge for us to score goals and, you know, you win games by scoring goals. We're always going to be strong at the back and we're going to throw ourselves around, but we need to finish that final bit. And that's putting it in the back of the net.”

“We have to be brave in that scenario,” says head coach Jitka Klimková.

“Sometimes you have time to put the ball into the net and sometimes you just need to be brave to go to those battles in front of the goal and just attack the ball.”

Team news

After coming off early on Saturday with a back problem, Emma Rolston is unavailable for today’s match.

Tuesday 15 November at 6pm
Orangetheory Stadium, Christchurch

Book tickets to watch the game live from $5 at flicket.co.nz

Watch live on Sky Sport NZ. 

Article added: Tuesday 15 November 2022