When Lynn-Avon United midfield dynamo Kirsty Yallop peeled off her treasured red number eleven jersey after playing her part in a 5-0 thrashing of arch-rivals Three Kings United in mid-May, few present will have appreciated the significance of the occasion. That match marked one of the final times `KY' will play for the team she first graced as a precocious 14-year-old in 2001, for it is far beyond these shores where the Football Ferns' star's footballing future now lies. Yallop has scored herself a three-month contract with the reigning W-League champions Pali Blues, a Pacific Palisades-based club which plays in the United Soccer League, one step below the newly-formed Women's Professional Soccer competition in the USA. No prizes for guessing what the ambitious 22-year-old has her sights set upon securing in the not-too-distant future, then, the same objective she was targeting when first interviewed by this writer in 2002 - to play professional women's football. “Ultimately I want to be playing in the WPS, and I'm hoping this will be an opportunity which will help me achieve that objective. “Our coach, Charlie Naimo, is the General Manager for LA Sol in the new professional league, and one of his aims is to get as many players as possible from Pali Blues into WPS. “A fair few of last year's national championship-winning team have graduated, and he's hoping for the same thing to happen this year as well. It's a big incentive for me”. And one she has grasped with both hands, if her exploits so far are anything to go by. She set up Pali Blues' first goal of the season in her first match for her new club, and maintained their unbeaten start to the campaign by scoring the only goal of the game at Real Colorado in mid-June. The Titirangi resident's footballing talents dovetail nicely alongside the likes of Canadian star Kara Lang and US Olympic gold medallists Lauren Cheney and Tobin Heath, while there's still the added bonus of reuniting with Football Ferns team-mate Ali Riley to come - the fleet-footed flank player will be linking up with Pali Blues very shortly. “It's cool that I'll be teaming up with Ali there, that's for sure, but there are a lot of other quality players in the team”, many of whom were, like Kirsty, recruited following the Cyprus Cup competition in March. “An agent saw me play at that tournament and started looking for a few clubs for me to play at in Europe, amongst other places. He also spoke to some folk at Pali Blues, who decided they were interested, and that's how my switch to them came about”. The smoothness of this move contrasts starkly with the previous occasion Kirsty had her sights set on a move abroad. That was in 2005, when she was lined up for a scholarship with Central Connecticut State University. “That all fell through due to the NCEA situation - they couldn't understand our grades. I was the first one who was looking at taking up a scholarship, and I just happened to be unlucky, even though I'd completely passed everything. “However, that's water under the bridge now”, grins the summer-loving blonde, who has acquired a raft of experience since that unfortunate episode, one of the few disappointments in what, to date, has been a thrill-packed career. New Zealand Football's International Young Player of the Year in 2005 took that form into the following year, captaining her country's U-20 women's squad throughout a hugely memorable FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup campaign which culminated in one of the best results in the history of the game in this country. “It was a pretty tough year, from what I can remember. The first real change we saw was NZ Football affording us a better build-up in our efforts to both qualify for and compete at the World Cup. “Where previously we just went into the qualifiers without any preparatory games, this time we toured Australia at the start of the year. I didn't get to play against them myself, unfortunately, as I broke my wrist at the start of that tour. But I made it back for the qualifiers. “It was pretty awesome to have some really good build-up games prior to Samoa, where we won the qualifying tournament which secured us a place at the World Cup Finals in Russia”. The top scorer at that tournament led her team-mates into battle on two more tours prior to the Finals, scoring in a 2-2 draw with Argentina on that campaign before a pre-Finals trip to Holland. “In the Finals, we were pretty gutted when losing in the dying seconds of the game against Russia. It was our first experience at this type of event, and it was tremendous - with our opponents being the host nation, the stadium was packed. “We were losing 2-0 after twenty minutes, which was pretty upsetting, but to come back from that (to 2-2) was awesome. Then to go down in the last seconds to a last-gasp winner was gutting for everybody. “For the last game, we really wanted to get some sort of result 'cause we thought we'd been pretty hard done by, so we were pretty stoked to get the 0-0 draw against Brazil”, a team which ultimately finished third at Russia `06. Kirsty carried her international form into her Lynn-Avon performances, to the extent that she was named Northern Premier Women's League Player of the Year that season, an honour which went well with her fifth consecutive National Women's Knockout Cup Final winner's medal. But there was a gap in the trophy cabinet. “2006 was an unusual year for us. While it was pleasing for me personally to win the Player of the Year award, we were pretty disappointed with the year overall because since I'd been involved with the team, we'd been the title-holders, and it was the first time we hadn't won the league. “We had a rough year after that, with injuries, including one for me”, winces Kirsty at the memory of what happened on that fateful Anzac Day in 2007, when she was struck down by the blow all footballers dread, a torn anterior cruciate ligament. “I was pretty devastated, to be honest. We'd just come home from qualifying for the World Cup Finals - I`d finished as top scorer again! - and I was really looking forward to going, and the possibility it presented me of playing on the world stage against the world's best players in China. “I hated not being able to do anything, and especially not play - it really wasn't much fun. Watching the team play at the Finals and not being part of it was tough, too, and a bit upsetting. “From the perspective of getting back on the pitch, however, it was a case of doing everything properly, including all my rehabilitation work. I had an awesome surgeon in Stu Walsh, so I was in safe hands, and he

Gettng the better of Japan's Homare Sawa Beating Norway's Marie Knudsen in an aerial duel Scything down USA legend Heather Mitts Kirsty takes on French opponents at the Cyprus Cup "Red Eleven"

ensured I was back fully fit in time for my new goal. “Even if I hadn't had the Olympics to aim for so soon afterwards, I would have come back as soon as possible, `cause I always want to be playing. The ACL is definitely the worst injury I've ever had - I wouldn't wish it upon anyone. And there were five of us who suffered it that season - not a good year!!” Au contraire 2008, when our intrepid midfield marauder stormed back into the starting line-up of the Football Ferns, collected the highly coveted National Women's Knockout Cup Final MVP award, and savoured what she regards as “definitely my most special memory so far with football. “The Olympics was just an awesome experience as a whole. Team-wise, football-wise … the whole experience was really special. “There are so many highlights. Our whole build-up to the Olympics was a highlight for me, because we created such an awesome team culture, and it was just so much fun. You were away with the same group of people for 6-8 weeks, which is a long time when you're with them every single day, but it was just so much fun - really cool! “Getting to the village, and meeting the rest of the NZ Olympic team, was pretty awesome as well. When we walked in, they performed a haka to us, and we performed one back - that was pretty special”. As was the wee matter of becoming the first player to score for New Zealand at the Olympics. “That was awesome. It was kind of right place, right time”, she says modestly, “because you don't see me score many goals like that. It was definitely different for me”. Usually a prolific scorer from distance, Kirsty can recall as if it was yesterday the opening goal of the Football Ferns' clash with Japan. “It was a good build-up, and a good cross in from Ali Riley. I'd made the run from midfield and luckily the defender missed it or let it go - one or the other - and there I was! “We were disappointed not to finish with the win, but getting a 2-2 draw against a top team like Japan, who eventually finished fourth, was still a pretty awesome result for us, and at such a huge event, too. “It was quite an emotional tournament really, up and down, and not quite getting what we wanted but coming close to doing so. It's definitely given us a taste, and we've improved a lot more since then, too”. Indeed so. In fact, that statement applies to the whole New Zealand women's football scene since Kirsty made the first of her 29 appearances to date for the national team, against the USA in October 2004. “That was just our eighth international since June 2000, apparently, and after the US tour in which I made my first appearances for New Zealand, we played twice more in the next two years - a two-match tour to Japan in 2005, only one of which was a full international. “Now we're playing tournaments, and we're playing them consistently - two to three a year. “There's been a massive change to the psychology of the players as well. Instead of going out and defending, and just playing without any real purpose, now we know exactly what we're going into the game to achieve, and we're going in there trying to win, instead of sitting back and keeping the scoreline down”. This sea-change in approach was particularly evident throughout the Football Ferns' most recent international adventure. The Cyprus Cup saw New Zealand's women make just their second trip to Europe in the national team's history, and as Kirsty describes, “it was a fun experience. “Since the Olympics we had a few new, young faces in the team”, smiles the comparative veteran! “It was probably our first test since then that we'd gone into and were really prepared to perform at, as opposed to the China tour at the start of the year which was more of a building phase for the team. “It was awesome going into it fully ready. We'd been training full-on and Brad Conza, our trainer, had got us well prepared. It's the fittest we've ever been as a team”, beams one of its fittest stars, as evidenced by a yoyo test return of 20.5 and rising. “In our first game at the tournament, we drew with Canada - again! They'd beaten us twice at home in 2007 and again at the Peace Queen Cup a year later, but this was a second consistent performance against them in eight months, which is awesome. And we were a bit disappointed not to win this time as well”. That gave the Football Ferns a point, and after being beaten by Russia, victory against Holland was paramount if the team was to fulfil one of its primary targets on this tour. “When we come to events such as the World Cup and the Olympics, we need to make sure we get the right amount of points and finish in the top two so we can go through, so this was a kind of test for us. “We knew we had to beat Holland to make sure we finished in the top two in our group, so it was awesome to not just beat them, but completely dominate them and score a well-deserved 2-0 win”. That set the Football Ferns up for a semi-final against eighth-ranked France. “That was a pretty fierce game”, recalls Kirsty. “We dominated the first half, and they came out a bit better in the second half. We kept going until the last ten minutes, when we started making mistakes and fatigue started setting in. “Unfortunately, teams like France capitalise on that sort of thing, so we could only hold out for the draw, then obviously didn't quite take it out on penalties! That was gut-wrenching, but something we'll hopefully put right for next time”. When that next time comes - and the prospects of a couple more overseas ventures for the national team before the end of 2009 are very high at present, `KY' will be able to bring to bear her newly acquired W-League experience for the Football Ferns' benefit. Before those opportunities arise, however, she has some unfinished business to attend to. “I've been studying for a Bachelor of Sports degree at Unitec, and have just about graduated - this is my last semester. “Football-wise, I'm not yet certain. It's a case of seeing what comes from my season in the USA. If all goes well, I'll hopefully get into the WPS for 2010, but if that doesn't come to pass, I might be looking to go and play in Sweden's Damellsvenskan - I had a trial with Sunnana SK last year. “I need to get to a level where I'm performing at my optimum for New Zealand, given our World Cup and Olympics ambitions in the next three years and beyond. Which means that for the foreseeable future, I'm looking at playing overseas”. Kirsty Yallop hasn't gone for good just yet, however. “Once I return from Pali Blues, I'm really looking forward to playing for Lynn-Avon and completing another league and cup double - it's been too long since we did!”