When Tony Gustavsson started his tenure because the Matildas’ head coach in January 2021, one in all his first said targets was to get his gamers to “see the identical image”.
“I am a kind of individuals that desires to regulate the controllables,” he stated in his first media convention.
“Not simplifying when it comes to neglecting vital particulars, [but] simplifying when it comes to creating an image that everybody sees.”
He was referring to some various things: the brand new philosophies and methods he wished to introduce, makes an attempt to attach with gamers nearly amid lockdowns and border restrictions, and finally find out how to put together the group for the Tokyo Olympics that, at that time, was solely six months away.
Quite a bit has occurred since that media convention, now near a yr and a half in the past. A special and extra difficult image has emerged.
Stripped again to its numbers, the image is stark: The Matildas have performed 24 video games since Gustavsson took over, profitable eight, drawing 5 and shedding 11.
Of these losses, three got here towards opponents decrease than Australia within the world rankings (Japan, the Republic of Eire, and Korea) — three video games which have been determined by a single objective.
The Matildas completed fourth on the Tokyo Olympics, although received simply two of 5 video games (and one in common time) to get there.
They’ve scored 53 targets throughout this era and conceded 49.
Their longest profitable streak – and the time-frame by which they scored essentially the most targets – got here within the group stage of February’s AFC Asian Cup, the place they blew previous three rising nations — Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand — with an mixture rating of 24-1 earlier than shedding 1-0 to South Korea within the quarter-finals.
Except for the 4-3 win towards Nice Britain in Tokyo, Australia below Gustavsson has not received a single sport towards European opposition — nations which have made up 10 of the 24 video games the squad has performed.
In that context – the 15 months since January 2021 – this image of the Matildas is just not a fairly one. Their latest 7-0 loss to Spain and Wednesday’s 1-1 draw with Portugal have solely added darker paint to the portrait.
With the Ladies’s World Cup across the nook, it is comprehensible that followers and the media have gotten stressed. There seems, on the floor, to have been no enchancment in the facet that many anticipate to make a deep run within the event they’re co-hosting subsequent yr. Religion and persistence in Gustavsson are starting to fade.
Nevertheless, simply as there was following the Matildas’ surprising Asian Cup exit, there’s one other, larger image that should be introduced into focus right here: Australia’s struggles towards higher-ranked sides – notably these from Europe – are nothing new.
Between 2011 and 2020, below the tenure of 5 completely different head coaches, the Matildas confronted high 10 groups 42 instances (accounting for roughly one-third of their total opponents) with a win ratio of simply 38 per cent.
And of the 21 video games performed towards nations ranked within the high 5 in that interval, Australia received simply twice.
Comparatively, within the 15 months since Gustavsson took over, the Matildas have performed higher-ranked opponents extra usually (13 of 24 video games, or over half) and with a win ratio of 33 per cent.
Australia’s latest video games towards Spain and Portugal match into this longer pattern. They’re two components of a bigger image that extends again over a decade.
Inside that, too, there’s the narrower image of this specific June window:
As Gustavsson stated plainly following Australia’s loss to Spain: “That is the place we’re at.” And when understood within the context of their historical past, it is the place they have at all times been.
That is the image that Gustavsson sees. It’s the image that the gamers see. And after this latest pleasant collection, it’s the image that everybody else in Australian soccer now must see.
A sport of views
Certainly, these previous two video games have provided a microcosm of the place the Matildas now sit internationally.
Seventh-ranked Spain, which hasn’t misplaced a aggressive match since 2019, confirmed the gulf that exists between Australia’s second-string facet and a completely skilled, worldwide outfit; a group crammed with gamers from golf equipment like Barcelona and Actual Madrid, gamers who’ve received Champions Leagues, gamers who’ve received World Cups at youth degree.
Spain represents the rising dominance of Europe within the girls’s sport, the top of the game for each membership and nation. As Gustavsson stated following the loss: It was by no means a query that Spain would win, however just by how a lot.
Portugal, in the meantime, has supplied a distinct perspective on the place Australia at the moment sits within the worldwide pecking order. Wednesday’s 1-1 draw towards the Thirtieth-ranked facet confirmed the Matildas’ second-string group may be aggressive towards an rising European nation.
Whereas Portugal dominated the sport’s opening half and missed a handful of main probabilities, Australia was in a position to modify to the tempo, reconfigure its formation, and muscle its approach again into the competition within the second.
On the stability of play, a draw – because of a debut objective from Princess Ibini-Isei and an 87th-minute equaliser by substitute Telma Encarnacao — appeared truthful.
It additionally match into the longer pattern: The Matildas’ solely different two conferences towards Portugal resulted in a 2-1 loss and a 0-0 draw again in 2018 — two video games the place Australia had arguably stronger gamers to select from together with Sam Kerr, Lisa De Vanna, Alanna Kennedy, Chloe Logarzo, and Elise Kellond-Knight.
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And so, right here we’re.
Regardless of the various caveats and contextualisations of this worldwide window — the unavailability of the Matildas’ strongest gamers, the underestimated energy of a Euros-favoured Spain, the gulf that exists between Australia’s home pathways and people of rising European nations, the chasm between the Matildas’ first and second-string gamers — the expectations of followers and the media continues to develop.
They’ve been magnified by the strain of Australia co-hosting the largest soccer event on the earth with a group containing a handful of world-class people taking part in frequently at a few of the sport’s finest golf equipment.
However that, as now we have seen, is barely a part of the image. As a result of whereas Australia has gamers of the calibre of Kerr, Ellie Carpenter, Steph Catley, Hayley Raso, and Kyah Simon, so too do most different nations that Australia has confronted prior to now 16 months, nations that they need to additionally anticipate to face in a yr’s time.
The Matildas are, in any case, only one star in a a lot bigger galaxy of stars. The brightest of them have already accelerated away, emitting a lightweight that started a few years in the past however which we’re solely now simply beginning to see.
This doesn’t, in fact, absolve Gustavsson of – in his personal phrases – controlling what he can management. Legitimate questions have been requested of his participant alternatives, his ways, and his administration of alternatives afforded by worldwide home windows.
However they should be balanced alongside the issues he can not management: the many years of underinvestment in Australia’s youth nationwide groups, the lagging behind of the A-League Ladies in offering full-time alternatives for rising gamers, an uncoordinated home pyramid, and an more and more unaffordable growth pipeline, all of which have coalesced into the place the Matildas now discover themselves.
“That is a solution telling us the place we’re proper now with [these] gamers and that pathway,” Gustavsson stated.
“That is an perception that tells us the place we’re at, and we have to preserve investing to be truthful to those gamers, to have a good probability to leap from membership land to worldwide soccer, which is, proper now, too large of a step for them.
“The Matildas is just not a growth platform. A senior nationwide group mustn’t work on growing gamers concurrently making an attempt to win video games. The senior Matildas must be the tip of the iceberg.
“Brief-term, it hurts for all of us, together with us in and across the Matildas, followers, media, stakeholders, the federation.
However in the long term, perhaps that is precisely what we have to realise precisely the place we’re at and what we have to do.
“There is a distinction between expectations and perception.
“I’ll by no means, ever cease believing on this group. However we additionally must be truthful on what we are able to anticipate and what time we are able to anticipate it.”
What, then, will we make of all this?
Are the Matildas any higher? Based mostly on their previous 16 months of outcomes, no.
Are they any worse? Within the context of their very own historical past, probably not. They’re about the place they’ve at all times been.
So the place ought to they be, precisely? That can doubtless be the query that determines Gustavsson’s destiny, nevertheless it all will depend on the image you select to see.
