Roche reflects on "crazy few days" after FIFA nomination

Unless you have been living in a cave for the past few days, you will have heard that Republic of Ireland striker Stephanie Roche has been shortlisted for “the best goal of the year” (or FIFA Puskás Award to give it it’s official title) for her wonder strike against Wexford Youths last year.

In the process, Roche becomes the first Irish person to be nominate for this prestigious honour, and is the only female player to make the shortlist this year.

Since the announcement was made on Wednesday, Roche has been caught up in a whirlwind of media frenzy again, yet found time to chat to Extratime.ie about her nomination (shortly before she had to go and talk to France 24).

Here at Extratime, we are long-time fans of the Women’s National League and before the video had hit YouTube, we had been alerted to keep an eye out for it when it surfaced. Although the clip had only three views when we first saw it, we knew straight away that it would get people talking and quickly arranged what would be Roche’s first interview on the goal. Almost 3 million views later and the striker from Shankill is still taking interviews about her wonder strike.

Considering “that goal” was scored just over a year ago, she started by explaining to us how the news came out of the blue.

“It’s been a bit mental alright; I haven’t been off my phone the past three days between Twitter and phonecalls.

“I wasn’t really thinking about it anymore to be honest. Obviously the goal was brilliant for me at the time and I’m always going to remember it, but I kind of had let it slip to the back of my mind.

“I’m only after getting to France and have been concentrating on things here and not thinking of the goal whatsoever and obviously this then over the last few days, it’s just been crazy.”

In its sixth year, the “FIFA Puskás award” is an annual award given to the player who scores the most beautiful goal of the year. Named after Hungarian and Real Madrid legend Ferenc Puskás, the top ten goals are initially selected taking into account a range of criteria including the technique of the goal, and the importance of the match.

Cristiano Ronaldo was the competition’s inaugural winner, and this year the former Peamount striker finds herself in exalted company alongside names like Robin Van Persie, James Rodríguez and last year’s winner Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

“It’s obviously an honour to be listed among those names. I would have watched the World Cup and seen these goals at the time at thought they were great. Like Van Persie’s goal, I thought was a great goal, but for my goal to be up amongst them is great and hopefully get a few votes and maybe even get to go to the awards which would be fantastic.”

The public can now vote on their favourite goal of the top ten, and on December 1^st the shortlist will be whittled down to a top three before the polls open again. The three finalists will then be invited to “FIFA Ballon d’Or 2014” ceremony in Kongresshaus in Zurich where the winner of the Puskás award will be announced.

It has been a big year for the Republic of Ireland striker all round though, as she left Peamount United to play professional football with the French side ASPTT Albi in June of this year. Roche is just the latest Republic of Ireland women’s international to move abroad to play professionally, with others having gone to places like Norway, Sweden, Germany and Scotland, but how did the move to France come about?

“When we played in the Champions League against PSG a few years ago, there was a guy at the PSG game who got in touch with me; he was a journalist. He knew a couple of teams at the time and he got in touch with me a few months after that game. We had won the league with Peamount and we were going back into the Champions League and I knew it wasn’t the right time for me to move; so I decided to stay with Peamount and try and do better in the Champions League. We were still buzzing after getting to the knockout stage the previous year so I was looking forward to that.

“At the time it wasn’t the right move for me, but he came back again last year with this team, ASPTT Albi. He got in touch with me and told me that Soléne [Barbance – a former teammate at Peamount United] was there as well and they wanted to get me over on trial and have a look at me.

“So I went over and done well, and they wanted to sign me and I liked what they wanted to try and do. I liked what the manager was trying to achieve, the team had just been promoted and he wanted to try and establish a team in the league and hopefully finish mid-table, so he had good ambitions for the team and I decided that it was the right move for me then and decided to come.

So how is Roche finding life as a professional footballer in a new country?

“It’s been a bit of a tough start being honest with you, obviously the language barrier has been a big problem, but I’ve settled in well. We played yesterday and I had a good game so I’m hoping over the next few months things will improve and I’ll settle in a bit more and it should be good.”

The 25 year old striker tells us that while the French Division 1 Féminine is considered by UEFA to be one of the top leagues in Europe, the jump in standard from the Women's National League has not been too great.

“It really is a good league and it has some good teams but I could see a lot of Irish players who are playing in the Women’s National League getting into teams over here and doing really well. I think some of the top teams in the Women’s National League would probably do well against some of the teams over here. It’s just obviously a bit more of a professional approach with teams being fully professional here.

“Maybe the likes of Lyon and PSG would maybe be that higher standard and maybe that step ahead of the Women’s National League, but with the other teams around us – most players in the Women’s National League would be very good and do well over here.”

Life at ASPTT Albi sees Roche training a lot more than she was used to at Peamount United. A typical week involves a match on Sunday followed by recovery on Monday. Tuesday is a day off, but on Wednesday night, Thursday morning, Thursday night, Friday morning and Friday night, Roche is on the training pitch with her new teammates preparing for Sunday’s game again. She may be there only since the summer, but we ask her has she noticed an improvement in her game as a result of this professional setup?

“Obviously it’s great to be able to train full time. My fitness is only going to improve and playing against good players every week is going to improve me as a player, so I like to think there’s been some improvement there so far. I hope to get better and better as the season goes on and I hope to be ready for the Irish qualifiers coming up next year.”

You can vote for Stephanie Roche’s goal to win the Puskás Award on FIFA’s website here.