Matildas won’t be waltzing to Adelaide this year … again
SOUTH Australia won’t get a chance to see superstar Sam Kerr and the high-flying Matildas team this year, extending a 12-year absence for the national women’s soccer team.
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SOUTH Australian Matildas’ fans have been ignored again — for the 12th year in a row in fact.
Events SA executive director Hitaf Rasheed has confirmed South Australia will again miss out on a Matildas clash in November after the Chilean football federation revealed they would be playing the FIFA ranked sixth nation in Australia.
Australia and Chile will use the match as part of a lead into the FIFA women’s World Cup in France which starts in June, 2019.
“We are aware of the opportunity, but it is unlikely we will pursue it for this year,’’ Rasheed said.
“Having said that, we would love to see the Matildas in Adelaide sometime in the near future and wish them well on their road to France and the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup.”
This means SA fans won’t get a chance to see superstar Sam Kerr who was recently named among the 10 best players on the planet by FIFA or SA’s Alex Chidiac who featured in the Matildas recent AFC Asian Cup tournament in Jordan.
Port Pirie’s teenage Emily Condon, who made her national team debut in Portugal in March, will also miss out on playing in front of a home-city crowd — at least this year.
Chidiac and Condon were named in the Young Matildas squad bound for the ASEAN Football Federation tournament in Indonesia which kicks off on June 30.
The last time the Matildas featured in SA was in 2006 when Australia hosted the AFC women’s Asian Cup for the first time.
Australia played six matches in Adelaide — at Hindmarsh and Marden Stadium — in an 11-day tournament which featured nine nations.
The Matildas lost the final in a shootout to China at Hindmarsh before claiming the Asian Cup in 2010 before the side claimed runner up status in 2014 in Vietnam and in April in Jordan to eternal nemesis Japan.
Since then the Matildas have played in every mainland state and the ACT, including regional centres Geelong, Gosford, the Sunshine Coast and Wollongong.
The Chileans, featuring ex Adelaide-based Chile attacker Maria Jose Rojas ‘Cote’, this year qualified for the their first FIFA World Cup.
The Matildas are first preparing to defend its Tournament of Nations crown in the US with an opening match against Brazil on July 26 in Kansas City.
Australia will then meet the US — after beating the FIFA No. 1-ranked nation for the first time last year to claim the inaugural title — and Japan to wind up the second edition on August 2 in Illinois.
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