Australia head coach Tony Gustavsson has suggested his side are underdogs ahead of their Women’s World Cup semifinal clash with England on Wednesday.
The underdog tag is one that the Matildas have relished at key moments in this tournament, including during their quarterfinal victory on penalties over France.
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Given that reigning European champions England enter their third-straight semifinal and are ranked fourth in the world compared to Australia’s 10th, the Matildas are calling on the support of the 80,000 crowd in Sydney on Wednesday.
“[Home support] was massive for us at the Euros, especially in the final,” England midfielder Keira Walsh said on Monday. “There are those moments where the opposition could score and it shifts momentum sometimes when you’re playing it gives you an extra push when you know the crowd is behind you.”
Asked for his opinion on which type of archetype his side would fill in their first-ever appearance in the final four of a World Cup, Gustavsson would not be drawn on expressly putting the pressure of favouritism on England, but he could see why others would.
“In terms of favourites, and who’s the favourites, I think I’ll leave it to you guys to speculate and write about that,” he said.
“[But] if you look at rankings, they’re favourites. If you look at where the players play; they have starting players in top clubs and top leagues all over the world. And not just 11 [players], they have like 15, 16 [at top clubs] And then you’re compared to us, we have bench players in those teams. We have players playing in A-League Women, we have players playing in mid-table teams in Sweden.
“If we look at resources financially, obviously they are a massive favourite going into this game.
“But if you then add the belief we have. [And] the one thing that we have that they don’t have is the support and the belief from the fans. And that itself is going to be massive tomorrow.”
In a bit of a twist, though, one of the things that has been most useful in closing the gap between Australia and England, helping to fuel their hopes of an upset, is the same thing that has fuelled the Lionesses’ rise: the growth and increasing professionalism of the WSL.
The Matildas feature 11 players in their World Cup squad that ply their trade in England’s top flight, and another four have spent some time in the competition.
Sam Kerr, Steph Catley and Caitlin Foord start regularly for top-of-the-table clubs such as Chelsea and Arsenal and are amongst the faces of the competition, and others like Mackenzie Arnold, the Matildas hero in their shootout win over France, play for eighth-placed finisher West Ham.
“All of us that play over in that league, we can just say it’s a different world,” Arnold said. “Coming from the [A-League Women] to over there. The amount of professionalism and the talent that they have over there and the amount of time that they put into their clubs and players, it shows within the progress, both of [players] individually and the game as a whole.”
“It’s amazing,” Gustavsson added. “The other thing is that the investment, they might be a little bit further ahead than us in investing in terms of money and resources. The same comes to the national team. Someone told me that the women’s program in [England] has the same budget as all national teams in [Football Australia]. It says a lot about the resources and the money that they have.
“We’re at the beginning of that journey. And I hope to sit here in 10 or 20 years and say this was a crossroads moment when it comes to investment in women’s football [in Australia]. We can have the same resources with the same money as well.”
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