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Ahead of this week’s FIFA Women’s World Cup squad naming, Football Ferns forward Paige Satchell has spoken of her and her teammates’ determination to create history at home.
The Wellington Phoenix flyer is the latest player profiled in Sky Sport’s Following the Ferns documentary series on Tuesday night (Sky Sport 1, 7.30pm.
The episode was filmed during the Wellington Phoenix’s A-League Women season and Satchell made no secret of her desire to make the World Cup team.
She said the Ferns wanted to create history by winning a World Cup game and making it into the second round, both of which have “never been done before’’.
It was “a perfect opportunity’’ to do so with the tournament being staged at home in front of family and friends which was why “everyone is gunning for their spot in the squad’’.
Rotorua-raised Satchell outlined her football journey since signing her first professional contract in 2019 with German club SC Sand.
Now 25, she has since played in the A-League for Canberra United, Sydney and the Phoenix.
Lawrence Smith/Stuff
Paige Satchell during Football Ferns training at North Harbour Stadium
Wellington Phoenix’s 2022-23 season head coach Natalie Lawrence told Sky that Satchell had added vital experience to “such a young team’’ and it was a boost for the club to have a current Football Ferns who had played in other leagues.
Lawrence said Satchell was “a player with a lot of pace, she can wriggle, she can dribble, she can take players on and she can cross”.
The cameras followed Satchell at home in the flat she shares with Phoenix teammates Marissa van der Meer and Mackenzie Barry, who said she was a “very neat and tidy’’ flatmate but joked they had to discourage her habit of leaving “six or seven glasses of water’’ around the house.
LAWRENCE SMITH
Paige Satchell (R), with one of her flatmates, Football Ferns and Wellington Phoenix teammate Mackenzie Barry.
Satchell said it was “a dream to be playing football as your job’’ and it was “amazing to be able to come back and play at home’’.
She has scored two goals in 42 matches for the Ferns since her debut in 2016 and said she had faced the “highs and lows of being in that [forward] role.
“It’s amazing when you find the back of the net. I don’t think there’s any other feeling like it.”
Satchell is aware that she might “only get one chance’’ in a game to score and said “you have to be at your best to finish those opportunities off”.
Satchell is the first domestic-based Fern to be filmed for the Following the Ferns series.
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