It might be hard to pretend that an intimate Thursday night in front of Gosford’s most famous collection of palm trees gives the same vibes as 80,000 people at a Women’s World Cup opener. But Matildas coach Tony Gustavsson is still going to have a crack at it.
The Cup of Nations is here, and while there’s a trophy up for grabs, the truth is it’s meaningless. This is simply a series of friendlies dressed up as a tournament. The winners won’t be out getting tattoos to commemorate the achievement.
This trophy is meaningless – but what it represents is huge for the Matildas and coach Tony Gustavsson.Credit:Getty
But that doesn’t mean it’s not important. Gustavsson and the Matildas, who face Czechia on Thursday night at Industree Group Stadium, are approaching it as a dress rehearsal for the Women’s World Cup in every conceivable way – from the three teams they’ll face which were hand-picked to best replicate the attributes of their Group B opponents, to the way they’ll play and even the timing, location and identity of the players who will be made available for their pre-match media commitments.
Gustavsson joked he might even practice parts of the speech he’ll give the team before they face Ireland at Accor Stadium on July 20.
“We’ve spent two years now talking about, you know how I always say, ‘One day better’? This is now training tournament football,” he said.
“Meaning, how do we prepare, how do we win against Czech Republic [if it was] an opening game in a group stage? [That] is going to replicate what we’re going to talk about when we play Ireland.
“Everything we do now is like a World Cup rehearsal. It doesn’t mean the focus is only on winning in that sense, but we need to train tournament format – how we close that game out and quickly check into something completely different tactically against Spain, and then the same thing [against Jamaica].”
If nothing else, it will be an excellent measure of where the Matildas really sit after a rocky 2022 which began with a poor Asian Cup, hit the skids after concerning losses to Spain, Portugal and Canada, and then improved markedly with a series of impressive friendly performances in October and November.
Of course, not everything matches up so perfectly with Gustavsson’s plans to treat this as a World Cup run-through. For instance, if there were points on the line, he would roll out his best available team – but three members of his squad have already been ruled out of their opening clash with Czechia by his medical team. (He did, however, refuse to say who they were or even if they were regular starters; a little taste, perhaps, of the media games expected from the Swede in the tournament proper.)
Gustavsson also has to manage growing concerns around a lack of game time for more than half of his 26-player squad. Seven of them haven’t played a minute for their clubs in the last three months, he said, and a further eight have only played less than five games – so some might be gifted a run in the Cup of Nations which, at the World Cup, they may not have earned, or deserved, simply because they need to play to be ready for it.
Hayley Raso is in need of game time.Credit:Getty Images
He admitted it was a worry that some of his stars – like Hayley Raso, who has started only one game for Manchester City this season – are spending so much time on the bench at their clubs.
“I don’t want to over-emphasise this to put stress on the players. It’s just what it is,” he said.
“Everyone knows that if players get a lot of minutes in top clubs in top leagues, that helps the national team. If they get less minutes, or are playing lesser-ranked leagues or at less good clubs, it’s going to influence their own development. All we do is try to help the players to maximise their potential. Selection is not until June, it’s way too soon to talk about that.”
One player whose form and minutes he doesn’t have to worry about is Sam Kerr, who as usual comes into Matildas camp on the back of some ripping form for Chelsea.
“If you ask Sam, she never needs a rest. She wants to play every single minute of every game,” Gustavsson said. “I hope she can keep showing that [form] for the national team.”
Meanwhile, Spain coach Jorge Vilda bristled at what he said were “disrespectful” questions from the media about the 15 stars who have excluded themselves from national team selection indefinitely due to a dispute over his methods.
“I’m asking for respect for my team. We’re preparing for the World Cup, and your question seems to me to show disrespect to the team,” Vilda, speaking through an interpreter, said when asked why those players were missing.
“I have the best team that I want to train, nothing else. Spain always has great aspirations [to win a World Cup], like Australia, Germany, France, these are all teams with aspirations.”
2023 CUP OF NATIONS
Match Day One
Date: Thursday, 16 February 2023
Venue: Industree Group Stadium, Gosford, NSW
Match One: Spain v Jamaica – 4.10pm kick-off AEDT
Match Two: Matildas v Czechia – 7.10pm
Match Day Two
Date: Sunday, 19 February 2023
Venue: CommBank Stadium, Sydney, NSW
Match One: Jamaica v Czechia – 2.50pm
Match Two: Matildas v Spain – 6.00pm
Match Day Three
Date: Wednesday, 22 February 2023
Venue: McDonald Jones Stadium, Newcastle, NSW
Match One: Czechia v Spain – 2.30pm
Match Two: Matildas v Jamaica – 7.10pm
