The Matildas are expected to be back at full strength for their World Cup round-of-16 encounter with Denmark in Sydney on Monday night, as coach Tony Gustavsson laughed off a media helicopter spying on the team’s training session.
Gustavsson confirmed on Sunday that captain Sam Kerr was available for selection, but said he would make a decision on how many minutes she could play when he met medical staff before the match. Kerr returned to full training on Saturday, but sat out the Matildas’ training session on Sunday morning and was instead seen on an exercise bike.
“We had a nice moment as a team yesterday to see her back with boots on and touching the ball and being with the team in training,” Gustavsson said at the official pre-match press conference. “It was a very good feeling for her, a very good feeling for the players, her team-mates, and a very good feeling for me. Today she was off-feet – it’s all an individual plan for her in training, I trust my [medical] team 100% to prepare her as best as possible.”
Gustavsson was cagey about how he might look to use Kerr against the Danes. Given she has only recently returned to full training, it might be that the Chelsea striker starts on the bench. The coach said he would develop a plan in conjunction with his medical team “to see how many minutes will be suitable, looking at the 90 minutes and potentially extra-time, and how we get the most out of Sam Kerr in a game plan.”
Gustavsson’s efforts to keep the extent of Kerr’s participation in training under wraps were hampered on Sunday when a helicopter hovered over the session, held at Wanderers Football Park. News Corp is understood to have sent the helicopter, and subsequently published aerial images of Kerr at training.
The coach tried to laugh off the incident, despite it occurring during a period of training that was closed to the media. “I’ll try to be a bit funny here,” he said. “It says that the interest has gone sky-high, right? Sorry, that was a bad one. But really, it does say a lot about the interest in the team and what’s happening in this country.”
The Matildas are riding high following their 4-0 victory over Olympic champions Canada on Monday in Melbourne – a dramatic turnaround after a loss to Nigeria the prior week had left them on the verge of an early World Cup exit. Gustavsson hailed his players, particularly attacking threat Caitlin Foord, seated next to him, as he pledged that the team was confident of going deep in the tournament.
“It’s about putting the right player in the right position in the right mindset,” said Gustavsson. “We got that right against Canada. Doing the same against Denmark is going to be key, because it is about the mindset. We want to not look at the Canada game as a final, because it was just the start of something. This is the start of a play-off – we’re not going into the end of something but the start of something – that mindset is key for us.”
Striker Kyah Simon appeared closer to her long-awaited return from an ACL injury after she trained with the main playing group on Sunday, for the first-time at an open training session this tournament. Cortnee Vine and Teagan Micah sat out of training, for load management purposes. Aivi Luik and Charlotte Grant are expected to be fit for selection after passing concussion protocols. The deep squad may be needed if the match goes to extra time or penalties.
“We differently plan for each play-off game to potentially go to PKs [penalties] – it’s part of it,” said Gustavsson. “I think there’s some stat out there that a team that goes all the way to the final round, at least one of the four matches is a penalty shoot-out.”
Despite the Matildas losing their last round-of-16 encounter on penalties to Norway in 2019, Gustavsson insisted his team was untroubled by the prospect of a shoot-out: “We’re prepared and ready for it.”
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The Matildas have played Denmark twice during Gustavsson’s reign, with the Danes securing a victory in 2021 and Australia taking revenge nine months ago. The coach said the previous match-ups, which came among a steady stream of games against top-ranked European opposition, were part of a deliberate strategy to prepare the team for big moments at the World Cup.
“Not just the Denmark games, but from a larger planning purpose, it has been purposeful what we’ve done – to be prepared for moments like this,” Gustavsson said. The Matildas have previously won just one knockout match at the World Cup, in 2015.
Mary Fowler, who scored her first goal for the Matildas against Denmark in 2021, said this weekend the Australians were not underestimating their Scandinavian opponents.
“I don’t think Denmark are ever an easy team to beat – you have to give credit to all the teams that are at the World Cup as well,” said Fowler. “I think every game you have to treat it like it’s a final, especially with these ones coming up that are knockout games. We go into that game knowing that Denmark is a really good team and we have to be at the top of our game to beat them.”
The match on Monday is expected to be another sell-out, after the team’s opening encounter at Stadium Australia broke the record for the most-attended Matildas match.
“For us as players it’s crazy to see those numbers and how many jerseys are being sold,” Foord said on Sunday. “Not only little girls but boys as well, running around with our jerseys on, our names on the back. It’s something we never thought would have happened a few years ago.
“For us it’s rewarding to know that the game is in a good place … This World Cup, it’s going to change football in Australia forever. It’s really exciting for us to know that we’ve been a part of that.”