Leading Kiwi Women’s Soccer Stars Head To China by Jeremy Ruane One of the most decorated players in the history of New Zealand women’s soccer bid a winning farewell to the local club scene on June 16, prior to taking up a three-month contract to play professionally in the fledgling Chinese Women’s League. Maia Jackman assisted her Ellerslie club to a 3-0 victory over Takapuna in the quarter-final of a competition which the talented and speedy midfielder has virtually made her personal crusade in the last decade, the Uncle Toby’s Women’s Knockout Cup. The national competition has only been in existence since 1994, but in that time Jackman has amassed four winners’ medals, plus two highly prized Most Valuable Player of the Final awards in the cup, which is regarded as the ultimate symbol of nationwide women’s soccer supremacy on the New Zealand club scene. These are just a handful of numerous honours in Jackman’s footballing CV. The vast majority of players would be fortunate to boast a tenth of the winners’ medals, individual honours and representative appearances to which she can point, such has been the prolific success rate of the twenty-seven-year-old soccer star. As adept at athletics, fencing and cricket as she is at soccer, Jackman chose to focus on the round-ball game when her family moved south from Kerikeri to improve Maia’s chances of developing her sporting prowess, and the only setbacks she has since suffered have been injury-related. Her single-mindedness and absolute dedication to both her sport and personal well-being have meant Jackman has reached a stage in her career where the challenge offered by the local game is no longer enough to sustain her footballing development. The seventeen-times capped SWANZ international has been biding her time while searching for an opportunity to play professionally abroad, and after initial hopes of a contract in WUSA, America’s professional women’s league, just such an opportunity has come about for Jackman in the new Chinese competition. Jackman (pictured below) is one of ten players invited worldwide to take part in the new league, which consists of teams from Sichuan, photo copyright NZ Soccer

Dalian, Guangdong, Shanghai, Beijing and Jiangsu, and will run for three months. The former Eden, Lynn-Avon United and Three Kings United star will be joined in China by another former Three Kings team-mate, Simone Ferrara, who is based in California, and has been playing for Southern California Ajax in recent months. The lively SWANZ midfielder, who was the leading goalscorer at the 2000 National Women’s Soccer Tournament, hardly played any football in 2001, as she recovered from a serious knee injury, but, like Jackman, is itching to take full advantage of the opportunity which both have before them. With New Zealand not having played a women’s international now for over two years, and only five internationals since October 1998, the importance of this breakthrough for Jackman and Ferrara, in terms of their personal career development, cannot be over-emphasised. And while both will relish the chance afforded them through these short-term professional contracts, their desire to regularly represent their country on the world stage, and subsequently impart the knowledge and skills they gain from this experience to their colleagues, and test same against international opponents, remains, for both women, a principle career objective. Jackman and Ferrara (pictured above with the National Women‘s Soccer Tournament Player of the Tournament trophy) add their names to an all-too-short list of New Zealand women’s soccer stars who have played the game professionally abroad. Wellington’s Maureen Jacobson was the pioneer in this field, playing in Finland with HJK Helsinki and in England with the Millwall club, with whom she won the English Women’s FA Cup in 1991. Michele Cox was the next player to succeed in Europe, winning German League and Cup winners’ medals with TSV Siegen in 1988 and 1989, while Donna Baker is the most recent New Zealand women’s soccer professional, having plied her trade in Denmark. During their stint in China, Jackman will play for the Dalian team, while Ferrara, who was attending the World Cup Finals in Korea when the call came to head to China, will turn out for Shanghai.