Caitlin Foord is trapped in a strange footballing purgatory. It has been three months since Tony Gustavsson departed as Matildas coach, and now seven days since Jonas Eidevall quit as Arsenal coach. Like teammates Steph Catley and Kyra Cooney-Cross, it leaves her career directionless on two fronts, through no fault of her own.
“It is weird, obviously,” Foord said.
Caitlin Foord was below her best at the Olympics.Credit: AP
“I’ve never been in this position before. I think it shows you how quickly the game can change … [I need to] enjoy what I have in front of me and play the game as best I can, because it moves quick.”
Last week, Eidevall resigned, ending his three-and-a-bit years in charge of Arsenal, amid another disappointing start to the FA Women’s Super League season. According to ESPN, his relationship with the team disintegrated after a 5-2 loss to Bayern Munich in the UEFA Champions League and a 2-1 league defeat to Chelsea in the same week. With simmering fan anger pushed to boiling point, he chose to jump before Arsenal’s board had the chance to push him out.
Foord, 29, has held her own amid the turbulence.
“Obviously, I love playing for the club, and I want to give everything to the club,” she said. “Despite what’s going on around, I obviously can control what I can control, and that’s just to do my job. I guess I’ve just had my head down and not really let the noise get in. Full focus has been on my football and wanting to help the club push in the right direction.”
Caitlin Foord and then-Arsenal coach Jonas Eidevall in Melbourne earlier this year.Credit: Getty Images
That’s also how she intends to handle her return to national duty, where there is unresolved trauma still to reckon with. For the first time since their disappointing group stage exit from the Paris Olympics, the Matildas have formed camp in Zurich before a friendly on Saturday morning (5am AEDT) against Switzerland, the first of two organised for this window.
Foord came into the Olympics under an injury cloud and, like many of her teammates, fell short of expectations, both their own and the public’s. Losing 3-0 to Germany and 2-1 to the United States, either side of an almost comical 6-5 win over Zambia, shattered the team’s dreams of a podium finish at a major tournament, and also signalled the end of Gustavsson’s four-year reign.
“I don’t really know what went wrong,” she said. “I like to move on quickly because I can’t dwell on it too much.”
Football Australia has still not appointed a permanent replacement or signalled when they intend to do so, with the federation happy to leave Tom Sermanni in charge on an interim basis. Sermanni was the coach who gave Foord her international debut as a 16-year-old in 2011, and she believes his warm, familiar presence will help get the Matildas feeling good about themselves again.
Blast from the past: Then-Matildas coach Tom Sermanni in 2011 with a 16-year-old Caitlin Foord.Credit: Brendan Esposito
“I think for us just to have a good environment, a positive environment … as we all know, it was, I guess, quite a negative one from the Olympics not going the way we wanted to,” she said.
“Just to get back to that Matildas fun, positive football feeling and hopefully, two good results off the back of that, will help us moving forward as well.
“Tommy obviously knows our roots from the start and knows what this team’s about. I think he’ll bring that back into the team. As we’ve seen from the past with him as well, he’s got an eye for, you know, the youth coming through.
“I know he’s been watching us since he left. He’s been on the journey with us, but just from a different view, so I’m excited to see what he’s seen when he’s been out and what he now brings to the team.”
But the reality is the Matildas can’t truly move forward until a head coach is employed, and that person decides which way forward actually is and what that looks like for players. Foord would prefer for that to happen sooner rather than later.
“At the same time, I don’t really want to rush into anything,” she said. “And I guess we have the time now to be able to find the right person for the job. As of now, Tommy’s in, and I’m really happy with that. I know a lot of the girls are as well. So as long as it needs to take … when the time’s right, it will happen.”
Foord is aware of conversations between FA and the team’s senior leaders about what they would like to see from the new regime, and expects more to take place in the weeks ahead. Because she is not part of the team’s leadership group, she has not been directly involved in them; even if she had been, she probably wouldn’t have much to offer.
“I don’t have any names or anything like that,” she said.
“If I did, I would be in a toss-up: do I want them for my national team or my [club] at the moment? There’s plenty out there. It’s just the right fit for both.”
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