World Cup Group B: Australia timing their run for group of death with Ireland

Australia

Overview

Never before has there been more pre-tournament excitement surrounding an Australian national football team. A World Cup on home soil, a squad boasting a golden generation of players and an encouraging run of sustained good form has piqued interest and heightened anticipation in a country where football usually struggles for relevance.

Led by captain Sam Kerr, the team have sent expectations soaring, but it hasn’t always been so with Tony Gustavsson at the helm. Defensive frailties blighted the coach’s early tenure and, despite a fourth-place finish at the Tokyo Olympics, a disastrous exit at the quarter-final stage of the 2022 Asian Cup raised questions about the Swede’s ability to mount a credible World Cup challenge.

Gustavsson has sought to move beyond a “just give it to Kerr” mentality and tried to avoid an over-reliance on his star striker by giving game time to squad players wherever possible – not always to great success. A 7-0 defeat to Spain proved something of a nadir after he sent out an inexperienced team to the slaughter in Huelva. But the benefits of that policy may finally be coming to fruition, and the Matildas have since compiled a run of eight wins out of their last nine, including victories over top 10 teams Sweden, Spain and England – not always with a full-strength side.

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“Sometimes you’re not as bad as people say you are when you lose, but you’re not as good as people say you are when you win, either,” Gustavsson said after fielding a side heavily weakened by injury in the 2-0 win over England in April. “We know on any given day, we might not have the best team, but we can beat the best teams.” And with mixed results giving way to a solid run of form, the suggestion is that Australia may just be timing their run to perfection.

The coach

The charismatic Tony Gustavsson arrived in the hot seat in January 2021 with a big grin and goofy nature that belied a reputation for tactical astuteness. His work as Jill Ellis’s assistant was instrumental in the USA’s back-to-back World Cup triumphs in 2015 and 2019, and since taking over as Matildas head coach he has not been afraid to experiment tactically. He played three at the back at the Tokyo Olympics, with a degree of success, but has since seemingly settled on a back-four in a more conventional 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1.

“There’s a lot of potential here, they have shown their qualities, but I also think that together I can take them to the next level,” he said when he took the job.

Star player

There are few, if any, plaudits left to describe the goalscoring phenomenon that is Sam Kerr. The striker is in the form of her life and coming off the back of a goal-laden, double-winning season with Chelsea, during which she also claimed a host of individual accolades. She holds the Australian record for international goals – her 63rd helped down England earlier this year in her 120th international appearance – and such is her importance to the Matildas, there is a sense that she holds the hopes of a nation on her shoulders heading into this tournament.

“One thing is her individual qualities as a footballer but even more valuable to this team is what she gives as a person and how she carries them,” Gustavsson has said of his inspirational captain. “It’s amazing.”

Rising star

In a squad of big-name players based in the European leagues, Cortnee Vine stands out as one of the few who have won their place by virtue of her performances in the domestic league. The Sydney FC flyer’s rise to prominence has been meteoric and while she is still short of being named as a starter, she has the potential to make an impact off the bench with her direct running and ability to put opposition defenders on the back foot.

Did you know?

The Matildas might have been called the Soccertoos. Having previously been known as the Female Socceroos, in 1995 the broadcaster SBS decided to run a viewer competition to decide on a new name for the national women’s team. In addition to the Soccertoos and Matildas, the shortlist included Blue Flyers, Waratahs and Lorikeets. Viewers plumped for Matildas though – a nod to the song Waltzing Matilda – and the rest, as they say, is history.

Standing of women’s football in Australia?

Football is hugely popular with women and girls in Australia, but high participation levels do not yet translate to similar levels of eyeballs on the domestic league (even though this year’s grand final broke attendance records). The national team, however, is a different beast and interest in the Matildas is at least on a par with their male counterparts, the Socceroos. A World Cup on home soil has further intensified the public gaze and administrators have been keen to talk up the lasting legacy they believe the tournament will leave on the game amid the continued rise of women’s sport.

Realistic aim at the World Cup

“I think there are many teams that could win the World Cup,” England coach Sarina Wiegman said earlier this year. “Australia is one of them.” Gustavsson’s side certainly has the potential to make a deep run on home soil, and in Kerr, they have a player who, if firing on all cylinders, may even take them all the way. Still, there remains a degree of unpredictability about this team, despite recent improvements, and how well they deal with any opening night nerves may well set the tone for the rest of their campaign.

Written by Mike Hytner for Guardian Australia.

Canada

Overview

As the reigning Olympic champions, Canada come into the Women’s World Cup this summer with a target on their backs.

They play a style of football that prioritises defending. Bev Priestman’s side knows that they have quality in attack, but with several world-class defenders and goalkeepers in their squad, they believe that they have the ability to keep clean sheets against the best teams in the world. When you do that, you’ll always give your team a chance to win. That was the case at the Olympics, and expect it to be the same mindset in Australia and New Zealand.

Canada qualified for the World Cup last summer by winning Group B at the Concacaf W Championship in Mexico, later falling to the United States in the final. They were then drawn into Group B for the World Cup, with the hosts Australia, Republic of Ireland, and Nigeria. Some have suggested that this is the “group of death”, with each team capable of beating every other team.

Canada will take some comfort from the fact that they played against both Nigeria and Australia in friendlies in 2022, and picked up four results. They won both games Down Under in September, and won one and drew one against Nigeria on Canadian soil last April. “I’m not saying that she knew that we’re gonna draw Nigeria and Australia, but it’s great that she planned that out. I think she’s just very detailed in the way she plans,” said Kadeisha Buchanan of Priestman recently.

Just as Argentina did for Lionel Messi at the men’s World Cup, Canada will be putting everything into this tournament to get some long-time Canadian greats – Sophie Schmidt, Desiree Scott, and of course Christine Sinclair, among others – the crown jewel in what have been incredible careers. This tournament, as well as the upcoming Olympics could be a changing of the guard period for this squad, as young players push the veterans for playing time, at what could be the final major tournaments for several players. In the case of Schmidt, she has already announced that she will retire from international duty following the World Cup.

They’ll worry about the future later, however. The focus in the short term is lifting the World Cup trophy at Stadium Australia on August 20th. “We definitely have a culture and an environment that’s conducive to team chemistry, to winning, to being honest with each other, which not many national teams can beat,” said Vanessa Gilles in June.

The coach

Bev Priestman isn’t afraid to make big decisions to help her team win, and has also shown a willingness to plan for the future. Her squad for this tournament is capable of winning it all, just as they did in her first major tournament as a head coach at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, but it also features several young players that will be crucial for the future. Priestman, who was an assistant to Phil Neville with the England team that finished fourth at the 2019 World Cup, said in June that, “that blend makes for an exciting squad to lead and for any player to be a part of.”

Star player

In Canada there is no footballer more recognisable than Christine Sinclair. Arguably the greatest international footballer ever with a record 190 international goals in over 300 international appearances, Sinclair is almost bigger than the sport itself in Canada, not that the usually-reserved captain wants to be. The 14-time Canadian Soccer Player of the Year has scored at four Olympics and five World Cups, and finally won her first major international honour with a gold medal at the Olympics in Tokyo. “Her humility has inspired me so much to be a better player, a better leader, and a person,” said team-mate Shelina Zadorsky in June. “I appreciate still being able to continue to work with her at this stage in my life and career, and just have a friendship.”

Rising star

Simi Awujo has been involved with the senior Canadian national team setup for less than a year, but is showing signs that she could be a star for a long time. The 19-year-old switched her allegiance to Canada in 2022 after growing up in the United States and representing them at youth level. Awujo – who is able to play as a number 10 or deeper in midfield, and possesses a great eye for a pass – was a standout for Canada at the Under-20 Women’s World Cup last summer. The 2022 Canadian Soccer Young Player of the Year has made the most of her opportunities and was rightly on the plane heading Down Under.

Did you know?

At the Olympics in Tokyo, with the players kept in a bubble to protect them and the public from the effects of the pandemic, the Canadian players and staff held a Mario Kart tournament, playing the popular video game in the team hotel. Vanessa Gilles, who was crucial to Canada’s gold medal win on the pitch, also won that competition, later declaring herself a double Olympic champion on social media.

Standing of women’s football in your country?

Canada is one of the only top nations in women’s football that doesn’t have its own domestic professional league, although there are groups working toward changing that in the coming years. The appetite for it is there, and the need for a professional pathway instead of going overseas is long overdue. Football is the most popular sport in the country in terms of youth participation, and continuing to rise after Canada’s gold medal win at the Olympics.

Realistic aim at the World Cup?

Coming in as the Olympic champions, the expectation for Canada is that they will get out of the group stage and put up strong performances in the knockout rounds. The squad itself believe they have all the quality needed to lift the trophy. “Our chances are high if we play our game, we focus on ourselves, we have all the details,” Gilles said to reporters in Toronto in June. “We’re going in it to win it.”

Written by Benedict Rhodes for Canadian Premier League (CanPL.ca).

Nigeria

Overview

This tournament finds the Nigeria team in an unusually vulnerable state. Having lost the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations, a title they had previously monopolised for decades, the Super Falcons will arrive in Australia without their trademark aura.

Of course, 2022 was not the first time Nigeria have failed to win the WAFCON. Twice they had been usurped by Equatorial Guinea but on both those occasions it felt as if it was partly down to their own complacency. This time there is a real sense that the rest of Africa is catching up.

The Super Falcons lost to both South Africa and hosts Morocco, the two teams contesting the final with the latter winning. They then lost to Zambia in the third-place play-off. Considering that backdrop, it seems entirely possible that the nine-time African champions will not be able to equal their achievement from the last World Cup, in 2019, when they reached the last 16. Their best ever performance at the tournament was back in 1999, when they got to the quarterfinals.

In addition, the perennial cloud of owed bonuses and administrative interference hang over the Super Falcons once again. In a recent interview on the ‘Sounding off on Soccer’ podcast, their coach Randy Waldrum lifted the lid on the pressure he has faced over his final squad list while criticising the lack of preparation ahead of the World Cup.

“They wanted me to pick a goalkeeper from Nigeria for the World Cup that I have never seen, who has never been in one of our camps,” he said. He also revealed that the team shunned training ahead of their WAFCON defeat to Zambia on account of unpaid bonuses.

In response, the NFF described his outburst as an “afterthought” and directly criticised the inclusion of goalkeeper Yewande Balogun.

There is, however, some solace to be found in the fact that Waldrum has a squad brimming with talent, especially in the attacking areas. Barcelona’s Asisat Oshoala is at the peak of her powers and has just won the Champions League and she has a great support cast, including Atlético Madrid’s Rasheedat Ajibade and Saint-Étienne’s Esther Okoronkwo. There is also more depth in midfield, an area where Nigeria has struggled for options in the past.

“I think the current Super Falcons squad is loaded with many talented players,” Waldrum said. “There are a lot of players who have much to offer in the team and I am reasonably excited and hopeful.”

The coach

Randy Waldrum is a coach who splits opinion. Apart from the fact that his CV seemed rather weak when he was appointed, and the fact that he essentially works part-time, he also failed to win the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations last year, something that has been taken for granted in the past. To make matters worse he managed to antagonise the Nigerian media by limiting access to the players during the tournament.

In defence of the 66-year-old he is facing unprecedented challenges from the other African teams as women’s football on the continent is growing at a rapid pace and his job has not been made easier by the Nigeria Football Federation still owing some salaries. So the jury is still out on the former Trinidad and Tobago coach. Performances have slowly begun to improve but a poor showing at the World Cup will leave Waldrum with no place to hide.

Star player

Asisat Oshoala. Playing for a club of Barcelona’s stature, scoring as many goals as she does, being nominated for the Ballon d’Or and winning the African Women’s Player of the Year award on four occasions is a strong case to be the star player of any team. Oshoala’s speed, agility and eye for the spectacular means the Super Falcons often look to her for inspiration. That is not always a positive for the team as a whole but it does challenge the rest of the team to raise their level. A role model off the pitch too, she has a foundation and academy for girls, looking to create the sort of opportunities she was denied when growing up.

Rising star

If there is one thing that Nigeria have lacked in recent times, it is a reliable, mobile link between midfield and attack. Ngozi Okobi has fulfilled the role in previous years but now Deborah Abiodun has the potential to carry the team’s creative burden for many years to come. A part of the squad for the 2022 Under-20 World Cup, Abiodun interprets the role with a unique flair, drifting into pockets of space in the channels to combine with team-mates and take the ball into the final third. If trusted, the 19-year-old could prove a real revelation.

Did you know?

If Onome Ebi steps on to the pitch in Australia or New Zealand, she will play at her sixth World Cup, taking her past Japanese legend Homare Sawa and keeping level with Marta, who is also expected to play at this tournament. That would leave only the Brazilian Formiga ahead of them. Ebi, now 40, currently already has the African record.

Standing of women’s football in Nigeria

Despite bringing tremendous success to Nigeria, women’s football very much gets the short end of the stick from a financial perspective. It is very well followed, especially during major international tournaments, but its growth remains hindered by a number of factors with societal stigmas and poor administration/organisation most prominent among them. The domestic league often fails to kick off on schedule, clubs are inadequately funded and there is a lack of infrastructure and expertise.

Realistic aim at the World Cup?

Four matches is the most Nigeria have played at a World Cup, and they are faced with a difficult group featuring co-host Australia and reigning Olympic champions Canada. If they are to progress, they will need to go into their final group match against Ireland with something already on the board. Prediction: group stage exit.

Written by Solace Chukwu for Pulse Sports.

Republic of Ireland

Overview

Until last year, the closest the Republic of Ireland had ever come to qualifying for a major tournament was when they made it to a play-off for Euro 2009, Iceland putting paid to their ambitions. But after taking the runners-up spot in their World Cup qualifying group behind Sweden, thanks largely to beating Finland home and away, they finally did it with a 1-0 play-off victory over Scotland in Glasgow last October.

“What heroes, what fighters, what tigers,” said a rapturous Vera Pauw that night at Hampden Park, the Dutchwoman, after 25 years in coaching, having made it to her first World Cup too. A run of seven defeats in a row in the early part of her reign hardly augured well, but the team turned it around, captain Katie McCabe and midfielder Denise O’Sullivan, with 13 goals and 11 assists between them in the qualifying campaign, their standout players.

The success, however, has primarily been built on a solid defence, with Louise Quinn and Niamh Fahey at its heart. Goalkeeper Courtney Brosnan has shone too, after difficult moments earlier in her career, seven successive clean sheets up to last April earning her Ireland’s international player of the year award.

Pauw’s conservative tactics – she usually opts for five at the back with two midfielders performing shielding duties – aren’t universally appreciated, but she stands by her approach. “It is not that I love a deep block – I love winning,” she has said. “We need to be realistic, we have performed so well as a team – and that starts with not conceding.”

Against stronger opposition, though, goals can be hard to come by, set pieces often their chief source. McCabe, O’Sullivan and Megan Connolly’s delivery are likely to be key again. As will the ever trusty head of Quinn.

The coach

Vera Pauw. The former Dutch international, who was a team-mate of England manager Sarina Wiegman for a decade, is a vastly experienced coach who had spells in charge of Scotland, the Netherlands, Russia and South Africa before being appointed to the Irish job in 2019. Last year was a momentous one in her life, the 60-year-old going public with allegations that she had been raped as a young woman by a Dutch coach and sexually assaulted by two more.

In December, she was on the receiving end of allegations, chiefly about “body-shaming” players in her season in charge of Houston Dash. She was subsequently sanctioned by the NWSL, but she has strenuously denied the charges and has engaged a lawyer to fight them. “I’m not going to sit in a corner and let the storm get over me – be the storm.”

[ Ireland manager Vera Pauw accuses The Athletic of ‘agenda’ against her on eve of World Cup ]

Star player

Undoubtedly, Katie McCabe. The Dubliner, who was named Arsenal’s player of the year for the season just ended, is the face of this Irish team, having been appointed her country’s youngest ever captain at 21 six years ago. Goals, assists, tackles, arguments with the ref, she brings the lot. The eternal debate, though, echoed at Arsenal, is where is she best deployed? Most Irish fans would prefer to see her further up the pitch, but the ever-cautious Pauw often slots her in to the left wing-back role. Wherever she plays, she’ll be central to Ireland’s World Cup prospects.

Rising star

Okay, this will sound weird – but Ireland’s rising star could well be a 33-year-old midfielder. Sinead Farrelly only made her debut for her adopted country last April after an eight-year absence from the game, during which she was central to the NWSL’s investigation into misconduct by coaches in the league after her allegations against her former coach Paul Riley. “We were waiting on a player like Sinead,” said Vera Pauw after Farrelly’s debut against the United States, the country of her birth. She’s never lost her class, and, if fit, could take the quality of the Irish midfield up several notches.

Did you know?

If she hadn’t chosen boxing over football, world champion Katie Taylor could well be limbering up for a World Cup as we speak. A hugely gifted player, she was called up to the Irish Under-19 squad when she was just 15 and went on to win 11 senior caps. But she turned down a contract offer from Arsenal in 2008 to focus on boxing. With an Olympic gold medal and a bundle of professional world titles to her name, you’d imagine she has no regrets.

Standing of women’s football in Ireland?

While the domestic game still struggles in terms of attendances and media coverage, and carries on losing its best players to the UK and beyond, the national team’s profile has gone through the roof since World Cup qualification.

There has been a surge in young girls joining clubs around the country, when Gaelic games would have been the number one attraction before; there have been record crowds and TV audiences along the way for the national team who now have match-fee parity with their male counterparts. And come September, they will play in the national stadium for the first time. And it’s only six years since the squad threatened strike action against their association for being treated “like the dirt on their shoe,” as their legal adviser put it. Changed times.

Realistic aim at the World Cup?

It’ll be no small challenge finishing in the top two in a group that includes co-hosts Australia and Olympic champions Canada, both ranked in the world’s top 10. Realistically, Ireland’s best hope would be the runners-up spot, at which stage they would most likely meet England in the last 16. Tricky. Vera Pauw, though, is up for that challenge. “What was it that that Jackie Charlton used to say? We’ll give it a lash!”

Written by Mary Hannigan for The Irish Times.