The New Zealand under 20 women's footballers have played out goalless draw against hosts and tournament front-runners France in their second game at the World Cup.
NZ player Hannah Blake high fives a team-mate. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
The result keeps the New Zealanders slim chances of progressing to the next round alive, following their opening match loss to the Netherlands, who lead the group with two wins.
They must now beat Ghana - who are pointless after two matches and have already been eliminated - in their final Group A match on Monday morning (NZ time) and hope the Netherlands can do them a favour by beating France to advance to the knockout stage.
France is second with a win and a draw with New Zealand third on one point and Ghana last.
In an absorbing encounter played at a high intensity throughout, France dominated possession as expected in front of their boisterous fans but New Zealand had a clear game plan and executed it to the letter to keep their hopes of progressing past the group stages alive.
"I'm really proud of the performance from the girls, we set them a pretty honest challenge to be better in certain areas from the first game and they certainly delivered on that today," coach Gareth Turnbull said.
"To be able to back up and go toe-to-toe with one of the best teams at this tournament - and have a proper game where both teams had opportunities - is amazing. I was pleased with the application of the tactical stuff but it was more the character, the heart, the aggression and the energy which they had heaps of."
New Zealand have now given themselves a chance to progress with a win over Ghana but Turnbull is keeping his feet planted firmly on the ground.
"It's a little bit out of our hands so we'll just focus on what we can control," he said.
"Ghana are a challenge and have a lot of very good individual players but we also believe there are some gaps there from a tactical perspective which we can exploit. If we go out and do the job then anything is possible."
