On Sunday, while his players tried to slalom their way through giddy children and persistent camera crews on their way to a waiting bus, a smiling Tony Gustavsson navigated an easier path to one side.
“Keep going, Tony,” urged an onlooker. “Keep going.”
But how does the man in charge of the Matildas, a team lifting spirits across a nation and changing sport in this country in front of our very eyes, actually keep his players going?
Amid the euphoria of advancing to a World Cup semi-final for the first time, one of the Matildas’ best players climbed aboard the bus with a heavily strapped thigh.
Steph Catley, who has been run-on captain in all five matches so far this campaign, walked a tad gingerly through some 200 fans who had waited for the Australian squad’s return to Sydney for a history-making semi-final against England on Wednesday night.
Catley appeared to be hampered in the final minutes of extra time against France on Saturday night, and the gruelling campaign will take its toll at some point. Her fitness will be clarified closer to the game.
Sam Kerr returns to Sydney with the Matildas squad.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
But how much more juice can Gustavsson squeeze out of Catley and the rest of his starting players?
A World Cup is not meant to be easy, and Australia’s players have been taken to the edge in their opening five matches through their desperation to get out of their group, two sudden-death ties and a manager who seems to keep extracting energy reserves not thought possible from his regulars.
Gustavsson has stressed the build-up for the showdown with England will be about rest and recovery, perhaps the only theory after an exhausting 120 minutes and penalties against France.
“My sports science and sports medicine team, they’re freaking world-class,” Gustavsson said earlier in the World Cup.
They’re going to have to be. In their march to the semi-final so far, Gustavsson has had six of his 11 starting players in the opening win over Ireland – goalkeeper Mackenzie Arnold, Catley, Alanna Kennedy, Clare Hunt, Ellie Carpenter and Caitlin Foord – play every minute of the World Cup.
And that doesn’t include the midfield engine room of Katrina Gorry and Kyra Cooney-Cross, who have basically done the same (Gorry was subbed off in the dying moments of the group stage win over Canada and Cooney-Cross has played all bar the last four minutes of extra time against France).
A comparison with England’s Lionesses is fair given Sarina Wiegman’s side has also had one extra-time marathon: the round of 16 win over Nigeria, who conquered the Matildas in the group stage.
Only three of the European champions’ squad has played every minute of the 480 across the tournament, goalkeeper Mary Earps as well as defenders Alex Greenwood and Millie Bright.
Matildas fans wait for the World Cup semi-finalists to return to Sydney.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
While both Gustavsson and Wiegman have used 17 players so far in the tournament, the Australian manager’s reluctance to use his bench heavily has been fervently debated.
Four of his squad players – Clare Polkinghorne, Alex Chidiac, Charli Grant and Tameka Yallop – have played just 29 minutes between then, excluding stoppage time.
It means the burden has been squarely on the shoulders of his starting stars, but how much longer can they sustain it?
Wiegman had the luxury of knowing her team was safely through to the knockout stage before the final group clash against China, and rotated her squad accordingly, while the Matildas had to scrap and claw their way to the round of 16 through a must-win match against Canada.
Even Australia’s most technically gifted player, Mary Fowler, she of the silky touch and passing vision gifted to only the very few, has run herself into the ground.
While most oohed and aahed at her poise and near misses against the French, there was one stat which spoke to her performance: 14.62km. No player covered more of Brisbane Stadium.
From managing Sam Kerr’s calf injury, which included shielding it from the media, Gustavsson has expertly guided the Matildas to a place no other Australian team has gone. But his biggest challenge still awaits.
His players, perhaps still adjusting to life in the fishbowl that is being in the final four of a World Cup in their own country, nervously smiled and gave high-fives to fans lining Sydney Airport. Gustavsson knows they can’t waste a moment in the build-up to the England match.
And as their bus rolled away, a voice rose above the crowd: “Good luck for Wednesday … beat those Pommy bastards.”
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