Five months after injuring her knee, Sam Kerr has finally been ruled out of contention for Paris 2024.
Tony Gustavsson has unveiled a 23-player squad for the team’s upcoming friendlies against China in Adelaide (May 31) and Sydney (June 3) – and while Kerr is obviously not in it, the Matildas coach has belatedly acknowledged that she will not be fit for the Olympic Games.
Kerr ruptured her anterior cruciate ligament while on a training camp with her club Chelsea in early January and is nearly halfway through her rehabilitation process, but for months the Matildas and Football Australia have been bizarrely unwilling to speak definitively about her Olympic chances, preferring to leave regular injury updates to players’ respective clubs – despite Kerr’s own father Roger declaring three months ago that she would not take part.
In a statement, FA said Kerr would continue her rehab with her club, as will young attacker Amy Sayer, who also hurt her ACL while playing for Swedish club side Kristianstads DFF earlier this month, scuppering her own Olympic hopes.
At the weekend, Kerr kitted up in Chelsea’s full home uniform to celebrate their fifth consecutive FA Women’s Super League title.
Kerr, 30, has had an eventful year despite her injury. A preliminary hearing scheduled for Monday, where Kerr’s lawyers were expected to attempt to have her racially aggravated harassment charge thrown out, was cancelled, which means the matter will go to trial next year – by which stage Kerr is likely to be fully fit and back playing again for Chelsea and Australia. Kerr denies the charges, which relate to an incident on a night out in London in January 2023 in which she reportedly called a police officer a “stupid white cop”.
Sam Kerr won’t be going to the Olympics.Credit: Getty
Meanwhile, 21 of the 23 players named in Gustavsson’s squad for the China friendlies helped the Matildas qualify for Paris 2024. Defenders Clare Hunt and Courtney Nevin and goalkeeper Lydia Williams, who is retiring from international football after the Olympics, all return after missing the April international window.
Katrina Gorry (ankle) and Aivi Luik (hamstring) are still missing but Gustavsson said they will most likely be fit for the Olympics. That means as few as 16 members of the current squad could make the final cut-off, with IOC rules limiting nations to just 18 players instead of the usual 23 or more in FIFA tournaments.
Gustavsson noted that of the 37 players he has called into camp since the start of the 2023 Women’s World Cup, 15 of them are either injured or just coming back from injury.
“This June, the window will be a tough one for me and my staff in terms of evaluating players, where they are in the selection process,” said Gustavsson via an FA media release, in lieu of a press conference due to personal reasons.
“This is the last camp to show the national team coaches that you want to be part of an Olympic roster, and a lot of players want to be that. So it’ll be some very good conversations and some tough conversations to be had … because obviously the selection has to be made during the June window. There might be players that are not in camp that still [are] available for selection, but they’re not ready now to perform, and I have to make some decisions based on players that I think might become available come the Olympics.”
China, the reigning Asian champions, will be coached by Gustavsson’s immediate predecessor, Ante Milicic, who was unveiled as the country’s new national women’s boss last week. Milicic was most recently coach of Macarthur FC in the A-League Men when he announced his intention to take a break from football in 2022.
“It’s going to be very different because it’s a new coach coming in, and a coach that knows every single detail about us as well,” Gustavsson said.
“So we need to prep for whatever is thrown at us – formation-wise with his high press, a low block, we don’t know. And I actually think that will be a good thing because that means we need to prepare for whatever comes.”
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