The Ultimate New Zealand Soccer Website | home
2010
Ali’s Relishing The Ride Of Her Life
by Jeremy Ruane
Ali Riley has been enjoying the ride of her life over the past four years, and, thankfully, it’s showing no signs of stopping yet!
Since this writer last interviewed her, during the Oceania U-20 Women’s World Cup qualifying tournament in Samoa in April 2006, the bubbly twenty-three-year-old has well and truly made her mark on the women’s game, which she now plays for a living.
"It’s been great!", she beamed, when the opportunity to briefly summarise a highlight-laden four-year period presented itself recently. "I feel really lucky to have been able to go from the U-20s to the national team. Obviously the World Cup and Olympics were great, but I think everyone’s improved so much since then, so I’m even more excited about Germany 2011 and London 2012.
"My first season in the WPS (Women’s Professional Soccer) completely exceeded expectations", said the league’s Rookie of the Year for 2010. "I’ve just had such a good time. I feel really fortunate to have been on the title-winning FC Gold Pride team and playing with the best players in the world".
About whom, more later. For getting to this point in her career has seen Ali doing the hard yards, primarily at Stanford University, from where she graduated earlier this year.
"Stanford has been amazing for me. I’ve improved so much there - it’s where I transitioned into being a defender. I think it’s why I got drafted in the WPS. I found such a good position for my skills, and I really owe that to the Stanford coaches and players there.
"It was an amazing four years, and I’m really sad it’s over now, but it was great - it made the transition into professional soccer a lot easier, having come from such a high level of college competition".
The final year of Ali’s Stanford career was a particularly memorable one for her team. They went all the way to the NCAA Division One Final without losing a single match all season, only to fall at the last against the legendary "Tar Heels", North Carolina, who are coached by one of the all-time-great women’s soccer coaches in Anson Dorrance.
"I don’t really like that being brought up over and over again", groans Ali. "I think it just provided more motivation for my first pro season, and that’s why it felt so good to win the WPS championship this year".
That title followed on from winning the W-League championship in 2009 with her home-town team, Pali Blues, where one of her team-mates during the season was fellow Football Fern Kirsty Yallop.
"It was awesome to have Kirsty staying in the Palisades with me, and we just had the best college players in the USA in that team. It was really fun. You play well when you’re having fun.
"Unfortunately I wasn’t there when the team actually won the final, but it was great, and made me even more excited for the WPS as well - just being with all those girls who got drafted to other teams shows what a strong squad we had".
An even stronger one beckoned the Pacific Palisades native, Ali leaping at the chance to live the dream and play professionally for her local WPS club, FC Gold Pride, where she was playing alongside and against some of the most famous names in the women’s game week in, week out.
"It’s been amazing. It really is a dream. The fact that women can get paid good money to play soccer is, I think, a testament to how far society has moved. It’s so great for women now, and how much people love the sport and are willing to come and watch us.
"There are so many great players out there, too. It was amazing - I can’t really put it into words. And to win it, too, was the icing on the cake".
A championship medal around her neck wasn’t the only memento the Oceania Football Confederation’s 2009 Women’s Player of the Year had to show for her efforts in the 2010 WPS, however.
"Winning Rookie of the Year was a huge surprise", Ali grins, her natural enthusiasm mixing easily with undisguised pride as she expounds on a special accolade which the public played a part in choosing via the internet.
"I’m so thankful to all the New Zealanders who were voting for me. It was so nice to have that support. It was a massive honour. There are so many good women coming out of college - my class. It was a huge shock, but so exciting, and it was an enormous confidence booster going into the final".
Which FC Gold Pride won in emphatic fashion, their principle inspiration the four-time FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year, Marta. Ali knew a question about the outstanding Brazilian was imminent, but never expected it to be put quite like this:
|
 Ali's beaming smile is never far away!
 Letting fly for Stanford University
 In action for Pali Blues
 In full flight for FC Gold Pride
 Ali (7) is engulfed by her team-mates after scoring her maiden goal for the Football Ferns in the 2010 OFC Women's Nations Cup Final
photo courtesy Getty Images
|
‘How does Marta cope with having such a talented Kiwi soccer player pushing her to produce her best all the time?’
Cue laughter. "I think I’m the one who’s getting the better deal out of that! She’s amazing. She’s a really good team-mate and she works hard every day. She makes all of us better players and she is, without a doubt, the best player in the world. She has been for the past four years. She will be for the next four years.
"I can’t say enough about her. I’ve been so lucky to be able to practice defending on her every day. I’m very glad she’s on my team and not the other team when it comes to game-time".
That may not be the case next season, however. Sadly, FC Gold Pride’s title will be their last, as the club has folded since the season ended, a situation which briefly gave Ali cause for concern - this is her livelihood we’re talking about, after all.
Such an outstanding and award-winning talent wasn’t going to remain a free agent for long, however, and former All White Aaran Lines moved swiftly to sign up his fellow Kiwi international for the new WPS team he is in charge of for the 2011 season, Western New York Flash.
"The end of FC Gold Pride came as a complete shock, as the season was over and we all ended on such a high note", Ali reflected. "The team was very close, and the owners and management seemed enthusiastic about the future.
"One good thing about winning the championship is that there has been a lot of interest in the FCGP starters. They are amazing players. Aaran Lines, the coach of the new WPS team, was quick to contact quite a few FCGP players, and at this point half of the new team are from FCGP. They are a great group of team-mates on and off the field".
Which means there will be plenty of familiar faces around her when Ali next makes her Flash debut later this year. "I have played with all of the projected defenders, either with FCGP (Kandace Wilson and Candace Chapman) or with Pali Blues (Whitney Engen), so know them all well.
"The Flash is going to have a very solid defence, and hopefully Kandace and I will get the green light to go into the final third just like last year.
"Some of the sports writers are already predicting that the Flash will be the team to beat. It is a bit early to talk like that but I am really looking forward to next season", even though WPS won’t quite by Ali’s number one priority in 2011.
It is a FIFA Women’s World Cup Finals year, after all, and that means more opportunities to play for the team which represents with such pride the land where her father was born, firstly in March at a tournament where the Football Ferns have made a strong impression in the last two years.
"The Cyprus Cup is going to be a huge opportunity for New Zealand to show it can compete with very highly ranked teams. I am so excited about that tournament", says a key member of a squad which has been drawn with France, Holland and Switzerland in their group for the March tournament.
After that, Ali, who is on course to earn her fiftieth cap for the Football Ferns inside the next twelve months, is eagerly looking forward to performing with her team-mates at Germany 2011 against Japan, England, Mexico, and beyond.
"I think we’re going to make a huge impact at the World Cup. The Peace Queen Cup was a good challenge for us, and a good transition. Prior to October’s World Cup qualifiers, we hadn’t played together since Cyprus, so it was good to see how we’ve improved and what we have to do to keep going for the next northern summer.
"I think we’re going to surprise a lot of people", she continues. "I know the All Whites did a really impressive job in South Africa, and I think we’re hoping to do the same, and show that we’re not a team to be taken lightly, and that we’re a bona fide top tier two team that can definitely hold its own against the best in the world".
"Of course, Cyprus Cup comes first!" And you can rest assured Ali Riley will be there with bells on, and maybe her shooting boots as well.
It took 38 games in coming, but her maiden Football Ferns goal was a belter, setting the team on the road to victory over Papua New Guinea in the OFC Women’s Nations Cup Final. Is a repeat strike imminent?
"Haha! We’ll have to wait and see. For now", smiles New Zealand’s International Women’s Player of the Year for three of the past four seasons, "I’m concentrating on not letting the other team score. But one day, when the stakes are high, hopefully I’ll get one in!"
|