• Home
  • SOCRATES’ THINKING
    • News and comment
    • Editorial
  • About
  • US
    • Sportsocratic team
    • Contributors
  • Reviews
    • Adventures
    • Books
    • Places
  • Contributions
  • Advertise
  • Contact

Sportsocratic

Thoughts, ideas, opinions and postulations on sport and adventuring

  • Sport & society
    • Ethics & Values
    • History
    • Favourite photos
    • Cultural and social issues
    • Politics
    • Big questions
    • Sport fashion
      • Sartorialism and style
  • Wild sports
  • Silly stuff
  • Sports science
    • Research
    • Coaching
    • Innovation
    • HEALTH
  • The things that made me
  • Stories
    • General sporting stories
    • Waves of Pain
      • No Respect!
      • Death Wish at Fairy Bower
      • Fried nuts
      • The ocean is a trickster… especially Hawaii’s North Shore – Gas chambers bites the unwary!
      • Titus Kinimaka’s nightmare Christmas
      • Dix dumped – the trials of a self-confessed elite body surfer
      • The little surf that nearly ruined a promising career…
      • Rabbit killer – a master takes a caning at pipeline!
      • Death Wish at Fairy Bower
      • Easternmost memory – surfing in the wild at the end of the continent
      • Nothing ruins a good surf like a couple of blokes with automatic assault rifles…
      • Agony for Miki Dora
      • Smashed at Gas Chambers
      • Who was Europe’s first surfing woman? Introducing the wonderful Witch of Newbury.
      • A bad day at Palmy – surfies and clubbies at war!
      • When being a proven waterman is not enough!
      • The highs and lows of surfing Sunset Beach while competing at the Duke Kahanamoku Invitational
      • An American midnight surf – that goes very wrong!
  • What does it mean?
    • What is a snake?
    • What does “shag” mean?
    • What does “Freddy Jones” mean?
    • What does “hook and ladder” mean?
    • What does back walk-over mean?
  • Philosophers Sport Bar
    • Socrates and Aristotle debate football defence
    • Michel de Montaigne on coaching sports
    • Ancient philosophers discuss what makes the beautiful game beautiful! Laozi and Socrates get technical.

Caitlin Foord – Playing sport for a living in a foreign land.

May 17, 2018 By TIMOTHY EDWARDS Leave a Comment Filed Under: Cultural and social issues

Fast, strong, courageous, smart and skilful, Caitlin Foord is not only one of the Matilda’s best players she is one of the most valuable soccer players in the world. Having played at the very top level of her profession in forward, mid-field and defensive roles, Foord is no one-trick wonder. Unlike many other footballers she is versatile. A coach can drop her into almost any position on the pitch knowing that she will do a great job. Caitlin Foord is a star of the game and she has been a star for quite some time… and she is still only twenty-three years old.

One of the youngest to wear the green and gold in a World Cup match

First international at sixteen

Foord played her first game of soccer for Australia in a friendly match against New Zealand when she was only sixteen years old. Later in the same year she played again for the Matildas but this time at the sport’s ultimate tournament… the World Cup Finals in Germany. Her participation in Germany made her the youngest Australian to ever wear the green and gold at a World Cup event.

In the booming world of women’s professional sport, Foord’s time in the sporting spotlight has provided her with the opportunity to play the sport that she loves all over the world. Her international experience is not restricted to matches where she represents Australia either. As well as playing for the Young Matildas and the Matildas in international tournaments in all kinds of exotic destinations, Foord has also played for professional football clubs in domestic pro competitions in the USA and Japan. It’s one thing to play a one-off match or a cluster of matches while representing your country in an overseas game or tournament that lasts, at the most, for a few weeks but to get the chance to spend an entire season playing as a pro, living and working in another culture and country is quite another thing.

Foord signed for US team Sky Blue FC when she was only eighteen.

With the world of sport… and professional sport… growing exponentially every year, young athletes may turn their eyes to overseas destinations for possible opportunities to play sport and earn a living. Consider the growth of soccer (Association Football), rugby, rugby league, Australian rules football, cricket, surfing, golf, netball, basketball and tennis (to name just a few sports) in the Asian/Pacific region alone and the picture builds as to why a young sports person, male or female, might think that a move overseas could be a good idea. Given that soccer champion, Caitlin Foord, has more experience than most in the world of global sports participation, I was thrilled when she agreed to talk to me about how she came to become an overseas footballer and how she found the experience.

First overseas gig with Sky Blue FC

Foord scored her first international playing gig when she signed for the Sky-Blue FC in 2013 when she was only eighteen years old. Sky-Blue, one of the foundation franchises in the new (at the time) U.S. National Women’s Soccer League, had been looking around for international talent to enhance their roster for the new national competition and were thrilled to have Foord join them at their Piscataway base in New Jersey.

Foord explains that her performances with the Matildas at the 2011 World Cup finals opened doors for her. As a sixteen-year-old, playing a significant role in the Matildas line-up throughout the tournament in Germany caught the eyes of talent scouts from several professional clubs from both the U.S.A. and Europe. It was clear to Foord, from a young age, that the best way for any young Australian player to progress their career was to move to one of the top overseas leagues. After helping Australian W-League team Sydney FC to a premiership win in the 2012-13 season she chose an offer from the Sky-Blue over several European opportunities for several reasons. As a young kid, living away from the support of home, family and friends, she decided that the route to career enhancement that would be easiest on her with the maximum potential benefit to her, as a player, would be the best way to go. She reasoned that given that the U.S. was English speaking and that New Jersey was most likely to be similar to her home, in a cultural sense, the U.S.A. option would be less of a strain than a European base. Additionally, the U.S. had risen to become the international power-house of women’s soccer in those years and the high quality of the coaching and athletic programs available seemed to suggest that playing for the Sky-Blues would also be great for her as a player.

Foord and her Sky Blue FC mates.

While Foord was very aware of the fact that she would be one of the youngest players in the U.S. NWSL competition, and that she would be one of the few kids living away from home during the season (and that this would present its own difficulties), she reasoned that since she had already been playing at this level of soccer for some years now she would be able to manage the move from Australia successfully. She was right. Several successful years with Sky-Blue followed, mixed in with stints with Sydney FC and Perth Glory. Caitlin Foord had become a globetrotting sporting star!

A radical change in direction came for Foord in 2017 when she signed for Vegalta Sendai… a team from the top-flight division of the professional women’s league in Japan. She explains that Sendai talent scouts had come to Australia in 2016 in the hope of finding an Australian player to bolster their 2017 squad.  The scouts attended several W-League games, including several where Foord was playing, and they liked what they saw. The Sendai Goal Keeper, American, Brittany Cameron, had already played a lot of football with Foord (back in Foord’s Sky-Blue days), and this led the Sendai officials to approach Cameron to ask her if she would feel out whether Foord might have a possible interest in a stint in Japan. While Foord expressed an interest to Cameron she didn’t think anything would come of the discussion. She was wrong. In early 2017 Foord signed with Vegalta Sendai on a permanent basis.

Foord signs with Vegalta Sendai

Foord speaks glowingly of her time with Vegalta Sendai.

Foord was grateful for the approach that Sendai showed to the negotiations. There was a lot of goodwill expressed all around. Sendai understood that Foord would be keen to play football in Australia at the end of the Japanese season and they expressed a willingness to allow her to be available to an Australian team as soon as her commitments in Japan had concluded… even though she would still, officially, be under contract to Sendai until the end of the year. Sydney FC were also willing to co-operate with such a flexible deal. They knew that Foord would not be available until late in the season, but they still wanted to keep a spot open for her.

So, Foord was able to depart to Japan knowing that both her Japanese and Australian clubs had her back and were willing to bend contractual obligations to enable her to play in both leagues if possible. Foord was aware that Sydney FC would be within their rights to back out on the verbal deal if another player came along who could make a longer-term commitment, but she felt confident that Sydney would still want her late in the year and, even if they didn’t, another team would! Cooperation in negotiations and looking for win-win arrangements seemed to be at the core of Foord’s movements from club to club. In circumstances where players need to play in multiple leagues in different countries (which seems to be typical of the present state of women’s professional sport) to make a decent living out of being a professional athlete, just such cooperation between clubs, players and management seems critical.

Japan is a long way from Wollongong!

Loves Japan

Foord spoke candidly about her experience with Sendai. She speaks of the quality of Japanese football, Japanese clubs (and Sendai in particular), Japanese supporters and what it is like to live in a Japanese city in glowing terms. There is much that she loved about her Vegalta experience. At the same time, she learned a lot during her stay and discovered that not every aspect of playing sport away from your comfort zone is up-side.

Foord has developed an enormous amount of respect for the Japanese approach to soccer. She cautions anyone who wants to have a crack at playing in a Japanese league to accept, before you get there, that their standards of technical skill are extraordinarily high and that high levels of technical skill are expected. That Japanese soccer players excel in the skill department is no myth. Though it is hard to believe, Foord assured me that she was the least technically skilled person at her club. She explained that even the kids who got called up from lower grades and came into the team as subs were better than her. She would often marvel at the six-year-old kids who would turn up at training who could juggle a soccer ball better than most fully grown Australian players can. She laughingly told me that these six-year-olds probably even had a better first touch than she did.

Japanese game has extraordinary level of technical skill

Foord also explained that it is not just the level of technical ability that is surprising within the Japanese clubs. The extend that players go to achieve their expertise is also extraordinary. She said that she learned ways and means of practicing and developing skills that she had never dreamed of before. Foord was embarrassed by the fact that her lack of skill with her left foot sometimes drew laughs from her teammates. From a technical perspective one of the things that she took away from her stint of playing soccer in Japan was a greatly improved left foot!

A lot to like about life in Japan.

According to Foord, the high level of skill that the Japanese players have, enables them to play a style of game that is heavily focused on possession. While Japanese players can be smaller in stature and therefor not as physically strong or fast as many European, Australian or American players their ability to move the ball around, perform precise and quick one-twos and pass accurately to team-mates means that they can run faster and bigger opponents around. The Japanese philosophy seems to be, a good pass is way faster than running with the ball, so, why run?

When asked how the standard of play in the Japanese leagues compares with the Australian and American competitions she responds that you simply cannot compare. They are too different to compare! The Japanese have their way… and it works. We have our way… and it works. Horses for courses.

Foord also enjoyed the element of being a foreign player in a small city. She was constantly thrilled by the devotion of the Sendai people to their soccer club. She explained that everyone in the city knew what Vegalta was and knew all the Vegalta Sendai players by name and sight. She said that when she walked down the street, people would come up to her to thank her for playing for their team. She said that it was quite common for her to be given free food in shops or restaurants because she played for the city’s soccer team.

Caitlin Foord… Vegalta Sendai!

Vegalta’s supporters, at the ground, were also a thrill for Foord. She said she was shocked when she played her first game and the team’s supporters kept up a constant barrage of cheering and singing the team’s songs from the opening whistle until the very end. Apparently small groups of supporters even followed the team to away games that were in cities some five hours away and continued to make lots of noise despite their small numbers. The cheering never diminished even when the team were being beaten. Foord said that it wasn’t just Vegalta who had passionate supporters. Every team had supporters that followed them around the country and there was always a polite battle between the supporters to sing and cheer the loudest.

Translators help but language still a problem

The dynamics of coming into a team where you don’t speak the language was not so much fun for Caitlin. She was grateful for the fact that there was a translator present at every game, team meeting, team practice or team event and this helped a lot, but the inability of Foord to fully communicate with her teammates and Vegalta’s coaching staff was problematic. Initially, she felt that she didn’t fully understand what her coach and teammates wanted from her. She didn’t really gel with the team’s style of play either, because, in the hurly burly of games and training, subtleties and nuances in communication got lost when relying on the translator. It was also difficult to get used to the individual styles of her teammates when she couldn’t talk to them, one-on-one. As a result, it took some time for her to fit into the team and become part of its chemistry. On a personal level it was also difficult because she missed out on much of the team joking and sky-larking between teammates and staff because she rarely understood what was going on. While her team had a definite culture and character she didn’t fully fit into what was going on until late in the season.

Not sure I get the joke. What the hell. Laugh along anyway!

When I asked what the worst aspect of playing football in Japan was she said that the biggest difficulty was something that she never foresaw. She explained that football had always been her special escape… the thing that she could turn to when other aspects of her life were not going well, and that playing football would pick her up again. Football, as the primary means of soothing the soul, took a battering for Caitlin Foord towards the end of her stay in Japan.

No rest!

Foord explained that for the whole time she was in Japan she and her teammates worked on their games six days a week, no matter what. No let up. Monday was a day off, but, every other day, rain or hail, it was either practice or game. The entire focus of her life became football, football, football. She felt that she lost important balance in her life. She said that she doesn’t know whether the approach at her team was the same across all Japanese teams but that she found the loss of balance difficult. Even going to the gym was considered out of the ordinary to her teammates. It was not the done thing. It was not part of the football philosophy.

The fact that the one thing in Caitlin Foord’s life that she could turn to and depend on when things got grim became the one thing that she wanted to escape from was by far the most difficult aspect of her stint playing soccer in Japan.

Foord explained that she loves football as much as anyone… and that it is incredibly important in her life… but she needed to be able to turn away from the game for a break occasionally. But that never happened!

Weigh up the pros and cons!

Foord acknowledges that playing soccer overseas is the dream of many young players and agrees that it can be an extraordinarily exciting step in an athlete’s life and career. Even so, she has some advice for athletes looking for an overseas opportunity.

Foord and Gorry and Vegalta teammates.

Young players with an eye to travel should weight up the options and look at the pros and cons of any opportunity, says Foord.

“A lot of people think that they have to go overseas because that is what everyone else is doing but maybe, deep down, they really don’t want to do that – maybe they just grab any option that they can get because they think they are doing the right thing… then get there and discover that they hate it.”

She explains that you must be happy off the field, to play well on the field.

“You have to choose somewhere that works for you,” she says.

Choosing a destination that makes you unhappy is more likely to damage your sports career than enhance it, thinks Foord.

“Some people that are strong enough to not care about playing in a place where you cannot speak the language and cannot talk to anyone and still enjoy that… but if you are used to being around lots of people and talking to lots of people that might not be for you!”

Caitlin Foord is currently rehabbing a serious injury. She has one more operation, next month, to remove a plate and screws from her injured foot but, with good management and a bit of luck, she should be ready to join the US Champions, the Portland Thorns, sometime in June for the second half of the NWSL (US) season. She says she has never been so excited or more looking forward to joining a team. With excitement and confidence like that I bet her stint at the Thorns will be huge!

Coming back to the U.S. soon but this time she will be facing her old friends from Sky Blue FC

TIMOTHY EDWARDS

Tim Edwards has had a completely rubbish sporting career so it is odd that he seems so obsessed with sport and adventuring. As a basketball shooting guard he had an okay jump shot but couldn't do anything else. As a rugby hooker he spent more time puking then actually playing. As a runner he won an awful lot of consolation prize chocolates for coming fourth but almost never won a ribbon. Despite his inadequacies he still loves sport and has opinions on almost any sporting subject. Tim has spent large parts of his working life in publishing and writing roles and has even done his share of teaching sport management to Uni students. He has coached more sports teams than he cares to remember. Tim is an awful surfer and skier but his lack of competence does not bother him one little bit!

Support Sportsocratic

Thanks for reading this story! We appreciate your visit to Sportsocratic… and love providing alternative information, opinions and angles from the sporting world. The world of sport is so full of the same old stuff from the same old sources that it drives us nuts… and it makes our day giving voice to less orthodox views. If you appreciate our free service, give some thought to helping us out. It costs us big bucks to keep Sportsocratic going but, if our readers support us, our future is much more secure.

Help us to keep you entertained and informed… and enable Socrates to keep asking those big philosophical sporting questions.

Support Sportsocratic for as little as a $1 and we would love you to bits. It only takes a few seconds!

Support Us

Tagged With: Caitlin Foord, football, Japan, Matildas, Sendai Vegalta, Sky Blue, soccer, Sydney FC, USA, World Cup

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related

SOCRATES’ RECENT TWEETS

Tweets by Sportsocratic

Secret Sports Person

Their sporting life – A journalist’s story

April 7, 2021 By SOCRATES Leave a Comment

“Bill” could have been a great rugby player… but he was more interested in other things. Do people display characteristics of their personal and working lives through their performances on the sporting field? Socrates describes the sporting life of one of his favorite people, and shows how the skill and character of one of Australia’s best journalists was always on show, even as a young man, whether on the rugby field, the basketball court or even on a quiet country headland when threatened with fisticuff by a big bloke wearing a blue uniform. Get “Bill’s” story here. Click the pic!

Olympics Rugby Teams – Who are the greatest?

April 23, 2020 By SOCRATES Leave a Comment

The rugby trivia question for the century! Which national rugby union team holds the record for the most Olympic gold medals in Rugby Union (the full-team fifteen a side game)?

Ethics and fairplay

Wallaby v France test – the moment that soared above all the others

July 20, 2021 By SOCRATES Leave a Comment

There were many great moments in the final Wallabies versus France rugby test last week but according to Socrates, one stood our far above all the others. Was it a great try? A brilliant tackle? A perfect scrum or line-out? A fantastic bit of work at the break-down? According to the rotund Greek hooker it was none of those things. He reckons that the highlight of the game was a much quieter, simpler and more subdued moment. A moment that might have escaped the attention of millions of spectators. Find out about Socrates favorite moment of the test. Click the pic.

Never cheated in my life!

November 19, 2020 By SOCRATES Leave a Comment

What is cheating? Is cheating a black and white moral issue… or are there shades of gray. Socrates spent twenty years in the engine room of the beautiful game of rugby… the scrum. He loved being a rugby hooker. He reckons that being slap bang in the middle of sixteen enormous, sweating blokes desperate to secure possession of the ball for their team taught him quite a bit about the fine art of cheating… what it is… and what it isn’t…. and how it can be done. Here Socrates lifts the veil on aspects of the workings of the 1970’s and 80’s amateur rugby scrum revealing some of its secrets. In so doing he shows that cheating is not a simple moral issue. he also claims to haver never deliberately cheated. Do you believe him?

matildas

Just six words…

May 20, 2021 By TIMOTHY EDWARDS 1 Comment

Have you ever wished that you could meet and have a conversation with someone you idolize? What would you say to your idol to convince them to want to stay in the conversation? What would they say in response to your brilliant social skills? How would the conversation go? How would it leave you feeling? An Australian ex-professional athlete who had played with and against some of the greatest basketball talent that this country has ever seen (Andrew Gaze, Ricky Grace, Shane Heal, Phil Smythe) once, by chance, had a meeting with possibly the greatest and most famous professional sports person that has ever lived. The superstar he bumped into, in a New York elevator, just happened to be the Aussie basketballer’s idol. How did the meeting turn out? Click the pic and discover the six most memorable words in this Australian point guard’s life.

Outstanding achievement

RITUAL: BEING CHAIRED UP THE BEACH

September 13, 2022 By SOCRATES Leave a Comment

Why do we subject professional athletes to embarrassing and cumbersome rituals at times when they should be celebrating. Why do athletes agree to participate in rituals that make them look like nongs? Chas Smith makes the argument for banning the post-contest victory chair-up-the-beach. Click the pic to get Chas’ important advice to the world of contest surfing.

New surfing podcast

One of Australia’s greatest ever surfers – one of surfing’s greatest story tellers – “Rabbit” Bartholomew – talks to award winning journalist Tim Baker about life, surfing and stuff. Perfect listening for lockdown entertainment.

professionalism

To smash or be skillful? Can good defense be coached or are accidents like the Latrell Mitchell and Joey Manu incident inevitable?

August 31, 2021 By SOCRATES NEWS DESK Leave a Comment

In a tough body contact sport are occasional horrible accidents inevitable? Possibly. But probably not with the frequency that many former elite players and expert analysts argue. Socrates believes that good coaching and hard work from highly skilled players can prevent many potentially dangerous tackles and that accepting the horror accidents as inevitable and high level skills as “uncoachable” sells athletes, professional sports and coaches short. Get the story here. Click the pic.

wisdom

Its just a job. Grass grows. Birds fly. Waves pound the sand. I beat people up. – Muhammad Ali

sport at mardi gras

Athletes in the LGBTQI Mardi Gras

March 12, 2019 By SOCRATES 2 Comments

Twenty-one different sports teams marched in this years Sydney Mardi Gras. That’s twenty-one groups of out and proud queer athletes. The LGBTQI community need to be “fearless” and queer athletes are no exception. Check out these fearless sporting clubs living it up on their night of night!

A life with horses

A life with horses – or Lulu in wonderland

August 8, 2018 By TIMOTHY EDWARDS Leave a Comment

It’s well known that playing sport can be a life-changing experience. For one mum, adventurer and businessperson, having a sporty pastime was more than life-changing. Lulu’s friendship with her horses has touched her and her daughter’s lives in a million ways and created a whole new life in an ever-changing wonderland for them both. But don’t think for a moment that their horses are the purpose built catalysts for their ideal lives! Its way more complex than that… and more respectful. Read on! It’s worth it!

wisdom

“Pressure? Pressure is a Messerschmidt up your arse. Playing cricket is not!”

Keith Miller

One of the greatest cricket “all-rounders” of all time, Keith Miller was not only an exceptional performer in multiple elements of test cricketing (batting, bowling and fielding) but he was also gifted in numerous other aspects of his life. Witty, entertaining, handsome, a renowned war time pilot and gifted Australian Rules Footballer, Miller was famed for calling a spade a spade and acknowledging that there was much more to life than elite sports. Having flown fighter bombers in the Second World War under life threatening circumstances he was not one to take the “pressure” of high level sport too seriously!

trivia

Here is a cracker of a trivia question.

Who was the college recruiting scout talking about when he said the following to his head coach.

“I’ve just seen a fat guy… who can play like the wind!”

Yup. The same guy who told people that just because they had shoes like his, it didn’t make them like him in any other way. Charles Wade Barkley.

Etymology

Are surfers sheep?

January 26, 2023 By SOCRATES Leave a Comment

Where do you surf? What’s your primary source of information about where is the best place to choose to surf? Over several weeks I watched the surfing grape-vine drag punters from one surfing spot to the next according to what the latest “word” was telling them about where they needed to surf. It made me wonder whether many surfers were just happier being part of the mob than in actually surfing great waves. It wasn’t long before I discovered that more people suffer from the sheep syndrome than I originally imagined. It is a powerful disease.

What does it mean?

What is Elvis leg?

Admit it. You’ve never heard of “Elvis leg,” have you? What the blazes is “Elvis leg?” As is the case with every other “What does it mean…” story we have ever posted, the answer is not directly related to the name itself. It is indirectly related to Elvis, though. Have a guess what the relationship is… then click here and check out whether your were correct. Find out for certain which sport uses this term and what it means.

What is a liberator?

Of course most you aviation buffs will think that a liberator is an American WW2 heavy bomber. Fair enough. But in a sporting context does it have a completely different meaning? Indeed it does. You are going to have to click here to find out what a liberator is and does in the world of sport.

Aphorisms, insights and wisdom

“The thing that’s depressing about tennis is that no matter how good I get I will never be as good as a wall.”

More perceptive sporting analysis from Mitch Hedberg, comic genius.

 

ebook

Phillip has returned to the south of India after eighteen years. But who is the young girl staying in his hotel? And what will he learn about his estranged brother through Inez, the Spanish backpacker?

To buy The Bangalore Test, John Campbell’s new ebook novella, just click the link.

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

©2019 Sportsocratic