Bott explains debt to team-mate
Leicester City fullback CJ Bott has paid tribute to New Zealand team-mate Ria Percival for easing her path into the Football Ferns’ top lineup.
Bott featured in an engaging first episode of Sky Sport’s Following the Ferns documentary series last night.
She gave a fascinating glimpse into her life at Leicester City in England’s Women’s Super League (WSL), being filmed bantering with clubmates and earning praise from manager Willie Kirk for her ‘‘bubbly personality’’ and ability to blend in.
Bott spoke, too, of how she felt at home in the English Midlands city with Kiwi boyfriend, Ryan, who gets brownie points from his work-mates, ‘‘all Leicester fans’’, for being the partner of a Leicester player.
But her most reflective moment came when asked about the biggest influences on her career.
She quickly cited
‘‘some of the older Football
Ferns’’, Katie
Duncan, right back
Percival and captain Ali Riley as ‘‘three big role models for me’’.
Percival, who plays for Leicester’s WSL rivals Tottenham Hotspur, was especially influential for Bott, who ‘‘learnt off her and watched her’’.
‘‘I started off in the national team for about four or five years and I would just sit on the bench and wait and wait and wait for my chance,’’ said Bott, who made her Ferns debut in 2014.
‘‘I would kind of get one game a year if I was lucky. It was really tough, really challenging.’’ Then her big break came.
‘‘I remember [Percival] said to me at the time when I got one of my first starts, ‘Come on, this is such big moment for you, you’ve been waiting for this for so long. Take it with both hands’.
‘‘She shifted into midfield and I felt like that was my moment, and it was a nice like passing of the baton ... I still carry that moment with me.’’
Bott, 28, now has 34 international caps and is a regular on coach Jitka Klimkova´’s team sheet.
A league and cup winner in Norway before joining Leicester, Bott is renowned for her striking first goal for New Zealand, a 35m wonder strike against Argentina at the Cup of Nations tournament in Brisbane in 2019.
The Sky documentary followed Bott’s painstaking attempts at Leicester to rehabilitate from a calf injury and be ready for the Fifa Women’s World Cup finals in New Zealand and Australia from July 20 to August 30.
Bott expects the tournament to be the highlight of her career.
‘‘I could win the [European] Champions League final and it still wouldn’t compare for me to playing at home [in a World Cup with the Football Ferns] in front of a solid-out crowd,’’ she said.
‘‘I think it’s what dreams are made of.’’