Source: Radio New Zealand
Football Fern Kelli Brown wants to keep scoring international goals. Photosport
Aspiring bike mechanic, surfer and prolific goalscorer Football Fern Kelli Brown can’t wait for a Hamilton homecoming on Sunday during the Fifa World Cup Oceania Qualifiers semi-final.
The Football Ferns play Fiji in their semi-final with the winner progressing to Wednesday’s final in Auckland with a place at next year’s World Cup on the line.
Brown arrived back in camp with the national team days after her A-League season with Newcastle Jets ended in disappointment, with the side missing the finals leaving her with “no idea” about what happens next.
The 25-year-old striker from Hamilton, who started her A-League career with the Wellington Phoenix before a stint with Perth Glory, is now out of contract with the Jets.
She is open to another season in Newcastle and is equally open to going “back to the drawing board” to determine her next move.
“Club football for me is just something that keeps me going,” Brown said.
“I’m always grateful for what I can do and the improvements that I can make, but allowing me to be in a space that can put me in a good position to play internationally is probably higher on my priorities.
“I don’t have any super high expectations of this is where I want to be. I’m just kind of riding the wave. The opportunity is so fun. You can do anything, you can go anywhere and I think that’s really exciting.”
Newcastle Jets Kelli Brown during the A-League Women. Marty Melville/ Photosport
Club football in Newcastle fit around Brown’s day job at a bike shop as “a bit of a bike builder, wannabe mechanic type of thing”.
Giving her time to also ride her road bike and go surfing.
“It’s important that you do have life outside of football because football is a hell of a rollercoaster sometimes.
“So being able to switch off in a sense of giving yourself some time to just chill and just exist and do something else is important.
“Not have to think about [football] if you can, which sometimes is impossible, I’m not going to lie.”
A push to get the A-League women’s competition to move to full-time has been gathering momentum over the last few seasons.
Brown said going full-time would provide stability for players and “a bit more of a professional set-up compared to what it is now”.
“But reality of that being possible in the next short space of time is probably not very high. There’s obviously a few things that need to be scrubbed up on before that can go full-time.
“I think working on just solidifying the new [collective bargaining agreement] is important. To just see what next season looks like first is probably a higher priority.”
New Zealand’s Kelli Brown, right, celebrates with Rebekah Stott scoring a goal during Fifa Women’s World Cup Qualifiers. Joshua Devenie / Phototek.nz
While her club future is up in the air, Brown knows what she wants to achieve with the Football Ferns during the World Cup qualifiers finals.
The last time Brown was the Football Ferns she scored her first international goals.
A first half hat-trick in a World Cup qualifier against Samoa in February was a spectacular way to get off the mark.
“It was awesome, eh? As a striker, I always want to have a crack at scoring, so to be able to do that for my country was pretty unreal.
“After scoring one goal, that was kind of crazy, and I was kind of content.
“A hat-trick was super crazy and not part of the plan, but super grateful to have the opportunity to go out there and score some goals for sure.”
Brown ended the first part of the qualifiers with four goals and wants to add to her growing tally, especially in front of a home crowd.
“To score some more goals would be sick, in front of our home crowd, even cooler.
“If I can get on the field that would be outrageous, and then I just want to score goals.
“My mum and dad in the stand, that’ll be cool. We’ll have to do some really cool celebrations.”
The transition between club and country is not always seamless for Brown who has 11 caps for New Zealand.
“Just remembering kind of small things of I’m playing in this style with these rules rather than that style with those rules. I think I sometimes struggle to lock in on, like, wait, this is completely different.
“I think it’s just a different style, but a good one.”
A break between the qualifiers held in the Solomon Islands and the semi-finals and potential final was “tactically probably a good thing” for the Football Ferns.
With a club a change in playing style can develop over a season, with the national team camps can be over in 10 days limiting the amount of time there is to implement change or progress.
Brown likes to break down film with her New Zealand team mates and have face-to-face chats at the breakfast table to make sure they are on the right track with the global tournament in Brazil looming.
“Sometimes I find watching the game myself, I’m concentrating too much on just what I’m doing and not how the team can benefit.
“But when you’ve got seven other people watching seven other people, there’s a lot more of, ‘well, if you did that and I did that, then we could’ … I think review is pretty important to know where you’re going and what you’re doing compared to how it felt in the moment.”
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
