Football Ferns coach Jitka Klimková admits time is running out to find a remedy to her team's goalscoring malaise, with little more than 100 days until the World Cup kickoff at Auckland's Eden Park.
The NZ women will face Iceland in a friendly at Antalya, Turkey, on Saturday morning (NZ time), desperate to end their scoring drought before they begin their home tournament against Norway on July 20.
While their dry spell is not as dire as their male counterparts, who finally ended a 12-month dearth against China last month, the Ferns are acutely aware they cannot win games without goals.
Their last successful strike came in a 1-1 draw with South Korea last November, but in five outings so far this year, they have yet to find the net, conceding 17.
"We want to win the game, we need to score goals," said Klimková. "Today is actually training, when we will focus a lot on our decision-making in the final third.
"We spend another training to improve our technique and our composure in front of the goal, so hopefully we will score against Iceland and Nigeria."
The Ferns thought they had scored in a 2-0 loss to Argentina at Hamilton in February, but Olivia Chance's goal was ruled out for offside.
Klimková sees Iceland as perfection preparation for Norway, with the two nations playing similar styles. New Zealand fell 1-0 to the same team in February 2022.
"It was a hard game," she said. "I remember we conceded a goal very early from setplays, and we were pushing, we were creating chances, we had the ball on our feet and combining with each other... the only thing that was missing was the goal into the net.
"That is why we were spending so much time, even in the previous games, in front of the goal and how are we going to improve our performances in our final third, so we can actually score goals.
"We want to spend more time in our final third, so we can create more chances."
At 14th, Iceland sit 11 spots higher than New Zealand if FIFA world rankings, but failed to progress through European qualifying, after losses to Netherlands and Portugal.
