The reigning English Women’s Super League champions will run out at Eden Park at 4pm today, and it will be the first time a club from that competition has played a match in New Zealand. Chelsea F.C. Women face an Auckland FC Women’s Invitational XI, a side assembled specially for the fixture, in the second and final match of the 2026 New Zealand International Football Festival.
Chelsea arrive with a trophy cabinet few clubs in the women’s game can match. They have won eight Women’s Super League titles, six FA Cups and four League Cups, and they have named a 28 player squad for the trip. The touring party includes England internationals Hannah Hampton, Lucy Bronze, Keira Walsh and Lauren James, Scotland captain Erin Cuthbert, United States defender Naomi Girma, Republic of Ireland captain Katie McCabe and Australian defender Ellie Carpenter.
For Chelsea the game is pre-season work. Manager Sonia Bompastor told the New Zealand Herald on Wednesday that the club was “really excited to come here” and that the trip was “part of our pre-season preparation”. Carpenter, who has played in front of large crowds across Europe and Australia, said the squad had only just arrived. “It’s been really nice; we just landed yesterday in New Zealand. It feels weird being out here with Chelsea, but it’s a really cool experience for the whole team,” she said.
McCabe was more direct about the venue. “It’s a fantastic stadium here, you can feel the aura the minute you step off the pitch,” she said, adding of local supporters that “I think the fans are incredible…they’ve always got an incredible fan base”.
The home side is the more unusual half of this fixture. Auckland FC do not yet have a women’s team in a professional league, so the club has built a one off 20 player squad drawn from current and former Football Ferns, players based in the A-League Women, players based in the United States and players from local Auckland clubs. It is coached by Jenny Bindon, a former Football Ferns goalkeeper and Olympian, who had the group together for barely ten days before this week.
The headline name is Abby Erceg, the 36 year old former Football Ferns captain who now plays for Toluca in Mexico and who holds the New Zealand record for international appearances. “I’ve had such a long and fruitful career in the women’s game, and I’m so excited to be able to inspire the next generation of female footballers in this country,” Erceg said when her selection was announced in July. “Bringing a team together and playing against one of the best women’s sides on the globe. It’s a chance to show young girls in this country that the dream of playing professional football is very real and achievable; for me, that’s the whole point.”
Bindon said having Erceg in the side mattered beyond what she does on the pitch. “She is a legendary Football Fern and someone who has helped shape women’s football in New Zealand through the way she has played, led and represented our country,” Bindon said. “To have a player of Abby’s calibre and character step onto the field at Eden Park against a club like Chelsea is something really special.”
At the other end of the age range is 17 year old Melville United forward Laura Bennett. Bindon told RNZ that the value of the afternoon was exactly that gap. “We have Laura Bennett, who’s 17 years-old stepping on the pitch with an Ellie Carpenter or Lucy Bronze or Alyssa Thompson, who’s about her age,” she said. “That inspires her, and that’s the next generation that will come through and be a professional for Auckland, but also possibly a Fern and playing in World Cups and Olympics.”
Six of the squad come from Auckland United, the national and Oceania club champions, in Piper O’Neill, Alaina Granger, Talisha Green, Saskia Vosper, Aniela Jensen and Olivia Ingham. Wellington Phoenix defender Mackenzie Barry is included, as are Melbourne City forward Deven Jackson, Perth Glory’s Maggie Jenkins, Newcastle Jets forward Charlotte Lancaster and Canberra United defender Liz Anton. Midfielder Olivia Chance, who has played in England, Scotland and Australia, said the short life of the team was the odd part. “We do get on really well and it’s kind of sad that it’s going to be for one game and then we all go our separate ways,” she said.
The crowd will be the other number worth watching. The men’s match in the same festival on 26 July, when Tottenham Hotspur beat Auckland FC 2-0, drew 40,112 people, the largest crowd for a men’s football match ever played in New Zealand. The overall national record is 43,217, set three times at Eden Park during the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, and the Football Ferns drew 42,137 to the same ground for the tournament opener against Norway. More than half of all New Zealand football matches to pull crowds above 20,000 have been played since the middle of 2023.
Bindon said Auckland FC’s drawing power and the venue itself were part of the message being sent. “They have sold out numerous times at Go Media Stadium and to be at Eden Park at the national stadium I think showcases to Chelsea what New Zealand has and what we offer and they’re excited about that and we just hope we can get as many people out to support football,” she said.
Organisers have leaned on families to fill seats. Children aged 3 to 14 get in free when they are listed on a family ticket alongside at least two adults, with up to six children covered per booking, according to Friends of Football. The match is being shown live and free on TVNZ 2 and TVNZ+. Chelsea supporters in England face a 5am start, with the club streaming the game on its own app and website rather than through a British broadcaster.
Behind the one off nature of today’s team sits a longer plan. Auckland FC were originally meant to enter the A-League Women in 2025-26, a season after their men’s side debuted, but the entry was pushed back and the club is now due to field a women’s team from the 2027-28 season. On current form the appetite is there. Whether a scratch side that has trained together for a fortnight can live with a squad of full time internationals is another question entirely, and one that gets answered this afternoon.
Will you be at Eden Park or watching on television? Tell us what you think a result like this would mean for the women’s game here in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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