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Biography
Never Say Die
by Jeremy Ruane
Ria Percival boasts a footballing CV of which she is rightly proud. The Essex, England, native emigrated to New Zealand with her family in 2003, and it wasn't long before she began making an impact on the domestic scene, initially with her club, Lynn-Avon United, and province, Auckland, the perennial national champions.
She hadn't yet turned fifteen when she won her first league and cup double with United, and repeated the feat a year later before becoming the youngest-ever winner of the coveted National Knockout Cup Final MVP award aged just sixteen in 2006.
That year was without question her most successful to date, as she was named Northern Premier Women's League Player of the Year for an unprecedented second successive season, was also named Auckland Secondary Schoolgirls Player of the Year, as well as being the recipient of a Future Champions award from Sport & Recreation New Zealand.
It was also the year when she was finally able to wear the silver fern of New Zealand, having qualified on residency grounds, and she was swiftly thrust into international action, initially at U-20 level.
She played in fifteen internationals in that age grade throughout the year, culminating in all three matches New Zealand played at the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup Finals, where they lost in the last minute to Russia and held Brazil to a scoreless draw.
Late in the year, she made her full international debut against China, the first of 37 consecutive appearances she has made for the Football Ferns, only one of which has been as a substitute.
New Zealand's performances at the 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup Finals and the 2008 Olympic Women's Football Tournament are part of this sequence, while Ria was also still eligible for the Junior Ferns' 2008 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup campaign, in which she scored twice before being harshly sent off in a thrilling 4-3 win over Nigeria.
That ruled her out of a match against the country of her birth, which saw New Zealand miss out on a place in the quarter-finals by just thirty seconds - England's equaliser came deep in stoppage time to deny the Kiwis a famous victory.
A perennial finalist in the New Zealand International Young Player of the Year award since making her debut on the world stage, part of Ria's 2008 was spent playing for WPSL club FC Indiana, while her efforts were recognised at the end of the year when named Sport Waitakere's Junior Sportswoman of the Year.
An integral part of the New Zealand set-up, with her ability to play as an overlapping fullback or wide midfielder, Ria's pace and accurate deliveries from either flank are key aspects of her game, as are her tenacity in the tackle, her never-say-die attitude, and her refusal to accept second-best. Summed up in one word, she's a winner.
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