Otumoetai Football Club has become the first international club to register a team in this year’s Kanga Cup. The U18 girls side will become pioneers of their football club, becoming the first women’s youth team from the club to compete in a Kanga Cup campaign. The New Zealand side based in the city of Tauranga will be aiming to play to the best of their ability when the time comes, with team captain Tiana Hill telling the club website that ‘the level of competition will be high but as a team we are focused on playing our best football.’

The girls in green led by captain Hill will provide Australian and international teams alike with the opportunity to match their own capabilities against the unknown quantity of the New Zealanders. With the New Zealand side including four footballers who have previously been chosen in New Zealand age group development squads, it will be interesting to see how the team fares against its opposition.

With the tournament only months away, the girls will surely be looking to embrace playing in the Southern Hemisphere’s largest international youth football tournament, alongside fellow New Zealanders Otago Boys High, who have cooked up some delicious fundraising to get them to Canberra.

Otumoetai and Otago are far from the only international teams in the tournament though, with teams coming from far and wide to the 2018 iteration.

Ghanaian club Sampa Soccer Heroes will attend in July, along with two teams each from Papua New Guinea and Singapore, while three South Korean teams will attend.

With less than three months to the tournament, make sure your team is registered by doing it now!

Words by Nick Graeber-Browne