Matildas, Sam Kerr, news, Tony Gustavsson, when do the Matildas play, Australia,

FULL PREVIEW: Every team and every group explained!

A WORLD CUP TO MAKE HISTORY

On Thursday night, their (hopefully) month-long campaign opens against the Republic of Ireland in front of an anticipated 80,000 fans at Stadium Australia.

That 80,000 is just the first indicator of the dizzying new heights the tournament will reach. Over 1.5 million tickets have been sold to watch the newly-expanded 32-team competition, with FIFA drastically increasing the prizemoney for nations and players themselves. And while an already-staggering 1.12 billion viewers tuned in to the 2019 World Cup in France, this time around they’re targeting 2 billion.

It will be one of the biggest moments in Australian sporting history and further proof, if any more was needed, of the stunning growth of the women’s game in recent years.

The Matildas have been at the heart of this journey.

Individually, they have benefited as the biggest clubs in world football turned their eyes to the women’s game. Superstar captain Sam Kerr at Chelsea faces handfuls of her national teammates at rival Women’s Super League clubs like Arsenal or Manchester City. Hayley Raso recently sealed a move to Real Madrid.

But as a team, the road to this incredible moment in Australian sporting history has been a rocky one, full of chastening lessons and setbacks.

On Friday night, the Matildas took what coach Tony Gustavsson called the ‘final step’ in the journey to the World Cup – a 1-0 win over world number five France in front of a record crowd of 50,629 in Melbourne – and proved they were ready for their moment in the limelight.

HOW FRANCE DREAM FELL APART

It was Friday’s opponents, France, who hosted the last tournament in 2019. The Matildas entered with high hopes, but were largely brought undone before a ball was kicked.

Coach Alen Stajcic was sacked five months before the tournament started, after a confidential internal ‘wellness audit’ led to concerns within Football Australia of a toxic environment in the national team.

The details at the heart of the axing remain murky to this day. Innuendo and speculation was widespread, though Football Australia made clear Stajcic was not being fired for misconduct and had not breached his contract.

It was not the first (or last) time the Matildas found themselves with a new coach just months out from a major tournament, but there was no doubt Stajcic’s axing after five years in charge was a significant distraction in the lead-up.

When the tournament proper arrived, things soon turned sour for the Australians. In the first game, the Matildas played well and dominated possession, led the scoring through superstar striker Sam Kerr … and still lost 2-1 to Italy after a 95th-minute winner.

Then came an injury that sparked a chain reaction and ended in an disappointing Round of 16 exit.

Veteran Australian centre-back Clare Polkinghorne couldn’t back up after that opening game after hamstring soreness.

Laura Brock (nee Alleway) had already been ruled out of the tournament just prior to the World Cup with a foot injury, leaving the Matildas with just one specialised centre-back, Alanna Kennedy, for a must-win match against Brazil.

The domino effect was staggering.

Left-back Steph Catley was pushed into the centre to partner Kennedy. Coach Ante Milicic wasn’t confident enough in his untested fullback reserves in Karly Roestbakken, Gema Simon, and Teigan Allen, and instead shuffled the pack once more – moving holding midfielder Elise Kellond-Knight to left-back.

That meant playmaker Emily van Egmond had to play in a more defensive role to cover the absence of Kellond-Knight. And Chloe Logarzo and Caitlin Foord also changed positions further forward.

One injury effectively changed the entire make-up of the side. The Matildas would go on to win their next match – an iconic 3-2 comeback victory over Brazil – but the flaws were clear.

Both goals conceded were the result of panic or a lack of cohesion in the new positioning.

In the games that followed, the team struggled to control the centre of the pitch in the absence of Kellond-Knight’s exceptional tackling and break-up play, while Sam Kerr in particular was left to lament the loss of Catley’s elite delivery of crosses from the left flank.

The Matildas fought hard in 2019 but were ousted in a penalty shootout in the Round of 16 at the hands of Norway, cruelled in large part by their key weakness – a lack of depth that meant one injury could unbalance an entire squad.

A COACHING ‘HEADACHE’ WE’RE GLAD TO HAVE

The difference to the modern team is night and day. The defence is arguably the area with the most depth in the Matildas’ squad.

Against France, Alanna Kennedy returned to the side for the first time since a horror run of injuries since September 2022, just one of four centre-backs deployed during the 90 minutes by Gustavsson.

One of them, Clare Hunt, boasts just six caps but plays with the cool head of a battle-hardened veteran. The least-experienced member of the squad only debuted in February this year but has impressed so quickly that it would not surprise if she starts the opening World Cup match on Thursday.

“The most important thing is we have so much depth (in the position),” Alanna Kennedy said after partnering Hunt against France.

“Between all of us, the support between whoever plays and whoever is coming off the bench and changing the game is unreal.

“That’s just what always makes the Matildas so special, love.”

Coach Tony Gustavsson said: “I have a lot of starting centre-backs; they give me a headache now.

It’s a good headache to have – and perhaps one he could only have dreamt of when he first took over the Matildas in September 2020.

Shortly after the Swede was handed the reins, Football Australia handed down a damning report into the 2019 World Cup cycle, known as the ‘Women’s Performance Gap Report’.

The findings were stark.

Australia had an over-reliance on a ‘core’ group of players – veterans who had made up the starting XI for years and years – and a severe lack of depth in the squad compared to their international rivals. ‘Fringe’ players in the squad had been handed minuscule minutes in comparison to rival sides, while the number of players used in total was also extremely short.

In summary, Australia had a squad that was among the “shallowest” in the game.

The Alleway and Polkinghorne injuries in 2019 might have seemed like a minor fissure, but they quickly exposed a gaping chasm.

If the depth in the squad was one major issue, another was the Matildas’ inability to beat top-ranked teams, and particularly powerhouse European sides.

THE BOLD PLAN TO FIX BIG ISSUES

And so, Gustavsson and Football Australia embarked on a staggeringly courageous project – to face as many elite teams as possible, while bringing in as many fresh faces at the same time.

Either of these priorities, taken individually, would be reasonable – playing top teams more frequently while using the ‘core’ side made perfect sense, as did expanding squad depth by playing more youngsters and ‘fringe’ players.

But normally, youngsters would be introduced against weaker opponents, given the opportunity to grow and develop on the international stage.

Gustavsson’s plan was far more aggressive and risky. Regularly changing the line-up and formation while introducing rookies – and all this against the world’s strongest teams – resulted in a string of bruising defeats.

In 2021, his first year in charge, the Matildas played 16 matches and won just three, conceding 38 goals in the process.

Some of the individual results were miserable: conceding five goals to Germany and the Netherlands in the first two matches was an ignominious start, while there were big losses to Sweden and the USA too.

There were highlights in those early days, too, like a best-ever Olympics finish of fourth in Tokyo.

But the Matildas were then bundled out of the Asian Cup in the quarterfinals in poor fashion in January 2022, when they had been expected to contend for the title.

Then an extremely inexperienced Australian line-up copped another horror defeat in June, losing 7-0 to Spain.

Far more concerning than individual results was the trend that seemed to be setting in: by September 2022, the Matildas had played 18 games under Gustavsson against opponents ranked in the top 20 in the world. They won just once.

The focus on improving Australia’s miserable record against top teams was seemingly having the opposite effect.

GUSTAVSSON ON THE BRINK

The pressure was growing, the axe hanging over Gustavsson’s head.

After all, having a vision was all well and good, but this was elite football – results are king. And time was running out to the 2023 Women’s World Cup.

Australian football great Mark Schwarzer said in February 2022, after the Matildas’ Asian Cup failure, that Gustavsson ‘hadn’t done enough’ and should be axed.

Schwarzer told Optus Sport’s GegenPod: “Yes [he should be fired], because we have some phenomenal players and they’re playing in some of the best leagues around the world and playing well – but they’re not gelling as a team.

“I don’t think you’re making an off-the-cuff decision, it’s a pretty good decision based off 20 games and an Asian Cup which we should have been there or thereabouts in winning. So yeah, he hasn’t done enough for me.”

But Football Australia stood firm, perhaps surprisingly given their history of axing coaches in the months preceding a major tournament.

Sam Kerr told Fox Sports Australia in March of 2022 that sacking Gustavsson would be the ‘worst thing in the world’ for the team.

“I think we’ve always had this happen to us as a team, where maybe before the World Cup we haven’t been performing or things have happened where they fired our coach, or got a changeover of coach right before the Olympics or the World Cup,” Kerr said.

“So for us that would be the worst thing in the world, because starting fresh again – it’s just we’ve done it three or four times now.

“It happened when we lost Hesterine (de Reus, 2014), when we lost Staj (Alen Stajcic 2019), when we lost Ante (Milicic, 2020), it’s always a year out from a major tournament.

“For us that’s really tough. It’s really difficult.”

But Football Australia stood firm and the tide turned.

THE TURNAROUND AND THE NEW STARS

Australia has won nine of their last ten games – including wins over strong sides like Denmark, Sweden, Spain, England, and now France.

And the hard work unearthing fresh faces and increasing the depth has paid off in stunning fashion too.

Besides Hunt, the most recent of an impressive 19 debutants under Gustavsson, new stars have burst into life all over the park.

Fullback Charlotte Grant has grown from fresh-faced debutant to nerveless deputy to Catley and Ellie Carpenter, with youngster Courtney Nevin also surging into fullback contention and earning a move to the English Super League to boot.

Clare Wheeler is the new Kellond-Knight, dominating the base of the midfield with her physicality and hard work.

Ahead of her in the midfield is the reliable Kyra Cooney-Cross and Alex Chidiac, brought back into the fold by Gustavsson after childbirth to become a game-changing impact sub with her technical brilliance.

Throw in Cortnee Vine in attack, a winger who boasts blinding pace and plenty of versatility to boot – she was even shifted to centre-forward late in the piece against France, for example.

Chidiac, Cooney-Cross, Grant, Hunt, Nevin, Vine, Wheeler: seven World Cup debutants in Australia’s 23-player squad, all seven with fewer than 30 caps.

There are familiar faces too, of course. Lydia Williams and Clare Polkinghorne are back for a fifth World Cup each – a new record for Australians, male or female.

Captain Sam Kerr is at her fourth Cup, and is one of nine players with 100 caps for the Matildas.

But the key difference between this squad and that of 2019 is that there is now depth at every position, an ability to change formations and strategies and shift players around to suit the structure when needed.

It hasn’t been an easy process, far from it. There have been tears, injuries, and brutal defeats.

Gustavsson has experimented again and again with formations, players, combinations, strategies.

Even in their very final warm-up match for the World Cup, against world number five France on Friday, there were still bold experiments on display: three formation swaps, including to five at the back in the second half; using four different centre-backs; putting winger Hayley Raso as centre forward.

And the goal came after Australia’s two top scorers Kerr and Caitlin Foord were both sent to the bench.

The Matildas have well and truly proved they can match it with the very best teams in the world.

TAKING THE ‘FINAL STEP’ IN WORLD CUP PREP

“When we started this process, the federation presented the Gap Report and what was needed to do with this team,” Gustavsson said after the win over France on Friday night.

“Everything from the depth that we needed in the player roster […] to the stats showing that we had problems with top-ranked teams, and especially European teams.

“Tonight represented the final step in that process and that journey in preparing for the World Cup.

“We have five wins in a row against European opposition now; four top-10-ranked teams in a row, including three clean sheets against Sweden, England, and France. We’ve kept a clean sheet in six of the last eight games. We know we can score against anyone.

“This is a night to celebrate what we’ve done over two years in terms of investment in the women’s game and investment in this team with resources.”

After failing to make it past the Round of 16 last time out and having never been beyond the quarter-finals, the Matildas this time enter the Cup dreaming of far higher honours – and perfectly prepared for their moment in the sun.