One of New Zealand's footballing greats, Annalie Longo has taken on a new role to grow the game for women and girls across the country. But she's not ready to hang up her boots yet, with a home World Cup still calling.
Befitting her footballing nickname, 'Flea', Annalie Longo is leaping from one role to another in women's football in Aotearoa.
The hugely experienced Football Fern and two-time A-League Women's champion is working to grow the women’s game here, while still being an integral part of it.
Longo, 30, recently began her new role with New Zealand Football as development manager of the women’s game. It comes just as NZ Football have made a commitment to “supercharge” the women’s game through their legacy plan for the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 here in New Zealand.
This weekend, she’s helping to organise – and will play in – a special match celebrating the 100th anniversary of women’s football in New Zealand. It’s almost a rematch of the first women’s provincial game played between Canterbury and Wellington club Aotea in 1921 – and will be played at the same ground as that original game, English Park in Christchurch.
Like other New Zealand-based international players, Longo hasn’t been able to play for the Ferns in their latest series with Olympic champions Canada and Korea Republic, because of MIQ restrictions.
But she’s still been involved, making her commentary debut on the weekend for Sky Sport in the Ferns’ 2-1 loss to Korea (they play their second match tonight).
Donning her Superwoman's cape, Longo will also combine her day job with a domestic summer season playing for her local premier team, the dominant Canterbury United Pride.
And she wants to keep playing for the Football Ferns - possibly through to 2023 and the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
“I've still got a lot of decisions to make, but I'm definitely not ready to retire for good from international football," the 124-cap international and three-time Olympian says.
“I need to get myself back into enjoying football again and playing at a higher level to put that goal on the radar."
If she does, it will be Longo’s ninth FIFA tournament.
Longo admits it’s been a challenging beginning to her new job, shrouded in a pandemic lockdown. "It's been a tough start. I had to do all my inductions through Zoom, which was a challenge," she says.
But in Longo's favour is the fact that she knows a lot of what will be required in the role already, having driven the growth of girls’ and women’s football for Mainland Football in Christchurch for the last six years. “Fortunately, I already know a lot of the business.”
And she gets to stay in Christchurch to do it.
Longo's remit involves the overseeing of playing, coaching, refereeing and administration in the women’s game. She wants to get a gauge on what’s needed throughout the country to help women’s football grow, including futsal and school programmes.
“It's about being a sounding board and being visible,” she says.
Longo sees a gap in the way girl's football is catered for in New Zealand.
“I've learnt already that there aren't a lot of girls-only products in our structure, meaning that under the age of 10 or 11, there are not many programmes a girl can turn up to and play girls-only football,” she says.
“And if we're talking about girls falling in love with football and buying into it, I think being more targeted at girls themselves is really important. For me, that would involve perhaps being flexible around times as well - it may even be outside of the traditional hours like a Saturday. We'd be trying to create a fun-type of programme that would really drive participation.”
Longo was also involved in the launch of NZ Football’s FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 legacy plan in Wellington last week, to deliver better opportunities, experiences and development pathways for women and girls. She presented one of the four key pillars – People and Places (Tiaki).
“It recognises diversity and inclusion, as well as encouraging more coaches in the women's side of our sport,” she says.
It’s a huge opportunity to make the most of the biggest sports event ever played in New Zealand. Just how big is a Women's Football World Cup tournament? The last edition, held in France in 2019, generated 1.12 billion viewers around the world; around one seventh of the world’s population.
And while she looks forward, Longo won’t forget about the roots of the women’s game in New Zealand, and the women who kicked it all off.
She’s been involved in organising the celebration of 100 years since the first female inter-provincial match was played in Christchurch in 1921. The match between Capital and Canterbury United Pride in the National League: South Central series on Saturday will mark that milestone. Longo will be a pivotal player in the Pride line-up.
“We’re going to showcase a lot of the players over the decades, invite them to the game and do a presentation to celebrate the moment. It's something to definitely look forward to", Longo says.
It also coincides with the Wellington Phoenix debut match in the semi-professional A League Women on Friday.
(For the record, Canterbury won that inaugural game in 1921, 1-0, in front of a crowd of 2000. The following year, councils around the country banned women from playing football at city reserves. It wasn’t until the 1970s that the game began a serious resurgence in New Zealand).
Should Longo make the field at the 2023 World Cup, it would be a high point in an already stellar career - which started for the Football Ferns in 2006 at the age of 15.
Longo is the owner of some wondrous facts and statistics. Possibly the best of the lot is that she first came up with the idea for the 'Football Ferns' moniker for the national women's team, during a brainstorm around the time she first played internationally.
The last time a Women's World Cup was played in New Zealand - the inaugural U17 tournament in 2008 - Longo claimed the honour of scoring the country’s first-ever goal.
She’s also the second-youngest player - in women's or men's football history - to have played at a senior FIFA World Cup. This achievement came in 2007 in China, when she appeared in the tournament for the Football Ferns aged just 16 years and two months (the recordholder from Nigeria, in 1999, was just one month younger).
In the here and now though, it's her new work position which takes precedence. The fact is Longo's plate over the next few months looks fuller than Nana's Christmas dinner plate.
She’s also involved in coach mentorship and women in leadership programmes in Christchurch next month, and organising and overseeing women and girls football awareness month in March.
While she knows her role will see her more office-bound than she was at Mainland Football, Longo hopes not to be stuck behind a desk for as much as she can help it.
“I know this role will involve a lot more strategic planning than I've done previously, but at the same time I want to be really visible out in the communities, in our federations and out on the grass,” she says.
A key focus for Longo will be to develop relationships with the development officers of each of the six federations. Getting into schools to promote her sport is also foremost in her plans.
One gets the feeling that Longo is a young woman going places literally and figuratively for NZ Football.
- The Football Ferns’ second match against Korea Republic at 11pm tonight (NZ time) will be live on Sky Sport 1 and 7 beIN Sports. The Phoenix Women play Western Sydney Wanderers at 7pm on Friday, live on Sky Sport 2, Sky Sport 7 beIN Sports and free-to-air on Prime.
- The 100 Years Game between Canterbury United Pride and Capital Football takes place on Saturday at 2pm, and can be streamed on the Sky Sport Next YouTube channel.
