Kondo climbing football ladder
Having made an impression on football fields from Masterton to Japan, Nelson’s Nina Kondo is just days away from another big international tournament.
The 15-year-old will leave for China this week as part of an 18-strong New Zealand squad to take part in an under-16 women’s tournament in Weifang City from July 14–22.
The team will play three matches, against Chile, Thailand and the host nation, as coach Leon Birnie looks to sharpen his roster in New Zealand’s bid to make an impact at the 2020 Fifa U17 Women’s World Cup in India.
No players are returning from last year’s U17 Women’s World Cup, in which Birnie’s charges made history with a remarkable third-place finish – the highest position by a New Zealand national team at a Fifa tournament.
For Kondo, who played her junior football in Nelson but now resides in the Wairarapa, the clean slate of the U17 playing roster has offered her a prime chance to put her hand up for higher honours.
Last year she was one of nine players selected in Japanese club Urawa Reds’ youth development squad, and was the first foreign female to play for the club.
Kondo said her time in Japan had given her handy insights on discipline and technique, while also respecting the wisdom of older and more experienced players.
This year, the midfielder’s football education continued with a move to Masterton to attend the Paul Ifill Football Academy, attending Solway College and playing for Wairarapa United in the Capital Football W-League.
Ifill first became aware of Kondo’s potential through his Nelson academy, where she was one of the first girls involved in the setup.
‘‘Technically, she was very good, and I knew from pretty early on she’d done a lot of work herself – we felt at the time as a coaching team that if we could get her in a little bit more often, we could help her achieve what she wanted to achieve,’’ he said.
Having moved in with Ifill and his family, the shift north has so far paid off for Kondo. ‘‘I’ve been saying if you’re old enough, you’re good enough – and at 15 she is, in my opinion, one of the better players in the league, and that’s starting to show,’’ Ifill said.
Solway has provided a good academic balance for Kondo, although four evening training sessions a week, games on Saturdays and helping out with school sides leaves little time for anything else.
Kondo said her Wairarapa stint had given her the confidence to ‘‘be brave on the ball’’.
‘‘I never used to back myself on the ball, but Paul taught me to be willing to give the ball away, try new things.’’
Following the U16 tournament in China, Kondo hopes to turn out in the Oceania qualifiers in December, and from there, claim a spot in the 2020 World Cup side.
She has long-term ambitions to get a United States university scholarship and then play professionally in Europe.