The most important development in the Matildas’ final pre-Olympics warm-up clash against Canada happened before it began.
During the team’s warm-up at the Marbella Football Centre in Spain on Sunday morning (AEST), Caitlin Foord reported tightness in her quad and was quickly pulled from their starting line-up as a precaution.
It remains to be seen how serious her injury is, or if it even is an injury, but the sight of her in the stands with ice strapped to her leg - alongside Steph Catley, Kaitlyn Torpey and Tameka Yallop, who had also been ruled out due to various niggles - was a sorry one for coach Tony Gustavsson and Matildas fans alike.
Sharn Freier celebrates with Mary Fowler after scoring Australia’s goal against Canada.Credit: Rachel Bach / Football Australia
Then there was the match itself, which was also hard to get a proper read on. It was declared a ‘B’ international fixture, which meant it would not count towards any official statistics, including caps and goals, or FIFA ranking points. And for a team like the Matildas, who always seem to do their best work when stakes are at their highest, you could tell it wasn’t a full-bore effort.
Gustavsson had warned they would look tired because of their intense training schedule, and so it proved. He said that was by design.
“We wanted to prepare to play with heavy legs, where it’s difficult to focus, you might not have the power in your runs,” Gustavsson said. “We’re always an aggressive team that plays with high-octane energy. But in an Olympic tournament, when there’s such a tight turnaround of games, you know you’re going to have to play with fatigue at times.”
Canada’s 2-1 win was a tough watch, and not only because of the result. At times, it resembled a training run, because it was. Both teams approached it with specific aims to round out their Olympic preparations; for the Matildas, it was about testing different formations, combinations and tactics, seeing how they’d cope with Canada’s high press, as well as getting a precise number of minutes into each player as dictated by their medical staff.
The aim is to have them peaking on July 25, when they face Germany in their Paris 2024 opener - not now, when it doesn’t really matter.
Indeed, this match was totally meaningless, in a sense. But try telling that to Sharn Freier, who made her first start in Australian colours as Foord’s late replacement. Freier is one of the four ‘alternates’ who the Matildas will bring to Paris, all of whom have high hopes of actual involvement due to a last-minute regulation change which allows teams to swap injured players in and out of their squads of 18, effectively making them squads of 22.
Gustavsson described this as Freier’s “breakthrough game”, and though her first-half goal can’t be regarded as her first senior goal for the Matildas, she won’t care. She showed some great touches across the 90 minutes and played well off Cortnee Vine and Mary Fowler, who provided the assist for her 24th-minute strike, which put Australia in front.
That lead was extinguished four minutes before half-time when Mackenzie Arnold made an uncharacteristic howler, failing to secure a routine cross which was promptly poked home by Nichelle Prince. Arnold immediately apologised to her teammates; if there’s a good time to make errors like that, it’s before the Olympics, not during them.
Canada were clearly the better team and secured a deserved victory when Evelyne Vines fired through heavy traffic in the box and past Arnold in the 85th minute. They finished with 19 shots on goal, but only six were on target, and one was a gift from Arnold, so the Matildas will be broadly pleased with their defensive efforts in stifling the attack of the reigning Olympic champions.
The big concern was in the other direction.
Australia finished with only two shots for the match, with Freier’s goal the only one on target. Despite having fractionally more of the ball, their inability to generate chances was a worry.
“We normally create a lot of chances when we play, and I don’t think we did that tonight,” Gustavsson said. “We had some really good build up sequences ... but then that action of breaking that last line, we’re normally better at that.”
The positives? Aside from Freier, the other standout was Clare Wheeler, who filled in at left-back in the first half and reverted to her preferred midfield spot in the second. At no stage in either position was she exposed, and her continued development takes some of the pressure off Katrina Gorry, who got 45 minutes under her belt in her first match since injuring her ankle while playing for West Ham in April. Winonah Heatley also came on in the second half for her first taste of international football, albeit with all the aforementioned asterisks attached to it; she is not even one of the ‘alternates’ for Paris, and was drafted into camp to help with numbers at training.
But it is hard to escape the sense that the Matildas are a long way from where they’d prefer to be, less than a fortnight out from crunch time. Foord’s quad complaint is a fresh headache that Gustavsson could do without. Still, the hope is she, Catley, Torpey and Yallop will all be passed fit to face Germany.
“You always want to have all your players fit, in form and flying,” Gustavsson said. “I’ve also been around long enough to know that the only thing we can focus on what we can control.”