Rising star dreams of home World Cup
For as long as she can remember, Macey Fraser has dreamt of representing the Football Ferns on the world stage.
When she was only nine yearsold, Fraser spent months practising keepy-ups in the backyard just so she could do 100 in a row like her older brother.
But it was only when she finally managed the feat that her brother admitted he couldn’t actually do that many himself.
‘‘I grew up in a football-crazy family,’’ she said. ‘‘I remember playing football in the backyard with my brothers and it getting so competitive.
‘‘One year my brother told me he could do 100 juggles, so I practised for months and months trying to get 100. I finally did it and he said ‘oh, I can’t actually do 100’. That was the moment I was like ‘I’m better than my older brother. I can do this. I can play football’.’’
Now 17, Fraser is one of the country’s most promising female players and will be on the radar of the Football Ferns when the next Women’s World Cup is staged in 2023, potentially on home soil.
She was a regular starter in central midfield for the historymaking Young Football Ferns team that achieved a third-place finish at the Under-17 Women’s World Cup in 2018 and has already won the National Women’s League with Canterbury United Pride twice. But to take her game to the next level, the Rangiora product left the South Island behind. She moved to Wellington to join the Ole´ Football Academy, where she trains four times a week with boys of a similar age and plays for the Western Suburbs team. Without a professional team to play for in New Zealand, she said the Ole´ environment was the best place to hone her skills as she works towards her goal of one day playing for the Football Ferns.
‘‘Training with the boys just opened my eyes to what I’ve been missing out on in Christchurch. I knew I had to move if I wanted to improve my game.
‘‘The football Ole´ plays, I just knew it was going to be so much better for me because they have possession 99 per cent of the time, and the tempo is so much higher.’’
Fraser said it was frustrating not having the same professional opportunities in New Zealand as men, although Wellington Phoenix are pushing for entry into Australia’s W-League and hope a successful World Cup bid will finally get it across the line.