KEY POINTS:
At a time when most girls of her age would have been happily snuggled up in bed, Rebecca Sowden was kicking a soccer ball, mixing with boys and being barked at by Kevin Fallon.
Sowden, "Bex" to all but her mother, admits those daily early morning, often chilly,
sessions at a Mairangi Bay park where the emphasis was very much on improving skills and technique laid the foundation for what became a blossoming soccer career.
Tomorrow at North Harbour Stadium, Sowden gets her chance to display those skills when she plays her sixth international - and her first on New Zealand soil - against Canada in the first of two tests.
"They were the best mornings ever," says Sowden, who went on to play at Westlake Girls High and later in America.
"I would not be half the player I am if I had not had that opportunity. The training I did with the boys made me tougher. The emphasis Kevin put on skill and in things like juggling and using both feet is the key to the game.
"He did not treat me any differently than any of the others. I grew so much."
And, when Fallon headed across the bridge to set up his academy at Mt Albert Grammar, Sowden, with her mother as taxi driver, followed him for twice-weekly sessions.
She was, she estimates, putting up to 30 hours a week into her sport.
Sowden first kicked a ball as a 5-year-old in a boys' midget team at the Forrest Hill Milford club - where her father, Gary, is still running the junior coaching programme. She continued playing in boys' teams into her teen years, then joined the premier women's squad at Lynn Avon United under leading coach Maurice Tillotson. Then came a four-year scholarship at the respected College of William and Mary in Virginia - the second oldest university (after Yale) in the United States.
Now working in marketing and promotion for TV2 as a brand executive - "her dream job" - Sowden juggles her work with her football at Three Kings United. Her sights are set not only on the tests against the highly ranked Canadians but beyond that on a tour to the US and then, if selected by coach John Herdman, the World Cup in China.
"As a team we know that the eyes of the football world will be on us," says Sowden. "The New Zealand team has a huge responsibility as Oceania's representative at the World Cup. We know we cannot be there just to make up the numbers. We have to step up and show we deserve to be there. The future of New Zealand and Oceania women's soccer is on the line."
The national side have been given no favours, having been drawn in the same group as hosts China, Brazil (their first opponent) and Denmark.
For Sowden, who made her debut against Australia in 2002, the opportunity to play at the World Cup and a year later be back in China for the Beijing Olympics would be, should she get that chance, payback for the sacrifices she and her parents have made.
The hard yards of those early days when she trained alongside players such as Rory Fallon and Noah Hickey and others who went on to play professionally, continues.
Sowden, who has played under a number of coaches including Doug Moore, Tillotson, Paul Smalley, Mick Leonard and Allan Jones and now Herdman, has been training four times a week with the 15 Auckland-based internationals.