Could you coach the Australian women's soccer team to victory? In her funniest book yet, Carla Fitzgerald serves up a winning middle-grade story about sport, friendship drama and finding the guts to have a go. 'It's easy to be an armchair critic but much harder when you're the one making the decisions.' Eleven-year-old Ronni is basically a professional athlete ... at watching sport. If it's on a screen, she's glued to it, just like her parents. But when Ronni and her best friend, Kai, are recruited to secretly coach the Australian women's soccer team for the World Cup qualifiers, she discovers life looks very different on the other side of the screen. Suddenly, Ronni's running training sessions on the sly and sidestepping suspicious players. The team is floundering, social‚Äëmedia critics (including her own dad!) are piling on - and worst of all, Kai thinks her tactics are way off. Turns out coaching is tougher than it looks! With the team's World Cup dreams slipping away and her friendship on the line, Ronni must choose: stay on the bench or get in the game?

Details

ISBN13: 9780702271229
Format: Paperback / softback
Number of Pages: 272
Edition:
Publication Date: 01 Sep 2026
Publisher: University of Queensland Press
Publication City, Country: St Lucia, Australia
Dimensions (cm): 19.7(H)x12.9(L)x1.7(W)
Weight (gm):

Author Biography

Carla Fitzgerald is a writer, a recovered lawyer and a mum of three from Sydney. She studied arts and law at university, and worked at the Australian Human Rights Commission. Only after that did she rediscover the great fun of making stuff up. Carla is a tutor at the Australian Writers Centre and a Books in Homes role model. Her books include How to Be Prime Minister and Survive Grade Five and the CBCA Notable How to Break a World Record and Survive Grade Five.

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