‘It’s not OK’: Carpenter says calendar crunch has zapped Matildas’ energy

Matildas players are caught between a rock and a hard place in wanting to put on a show for Australian fans while grappling with the “quite dangerous” implications of an increasingly overloaded calendar, star fullback Ellie Carpenter said.

Just days after global players’ union FIFPro suggested players are at “breaking point” and ready to strike over FIFA’s refusal to listen to their concerns, the impact of a long and arduous season is beginning to show in the Matildas.

Caitlin Foord lasted just 15 minutes in Friday night’s 1-1 draw with China before coming off with a hamstring injury, having last week squeezed in an appearance for Arsenal against the A-League All Stars - a fixture which coach Tony Gustavsson feared would further drain the energy of the London club’s three Australian players.

Foord’s substitution was only precautionary, team officials said, and she will not feature in Monday night’s rematch at Sydney’s Accor Stadium if her involvement will put her at further risk.

Carpenter was the last player to arrive in camp, having landed in Adelaide late on Tuesday night straight from Spain after playing for Olympique Lyonnais in the UEFA Champions League final.

The clash with China was her 39th outing for club or country in a season which began less than a month after the Matildas’ third-place play-off against Sweden at last year’s World Cup.

Ellie Carpenter says Matildas players are exhausted after such a long season.Credit: Getty

Carpenter said players were desperate for some time off, which they will get next week after Gustavsson names his Paris 2024 squad, with the team’s Olympics pre-camp not due to begin until the first week of July.

“It’s tough. The calendar is tough. It’s getting tougher every year,” Carpenter said. “We’ve expressed these problems to FIFPro recently, but we’re all coming back off seasons. A lot of the girls were playing in four competitions this season, a game every three days - we’re just quite tired. We’re hanging for this break after the Sydney game.

“But that’s what it is - the schedule is tough, we have to adapt, we have to recover well and turn up when we need to.”

While FIFPro’s talk of strike action is largely related to the men’s game, due to FIFA’s unilateral move to introduce an expanded 32-team Club World Cup to be played every four years, the union holds fears about the women’s game being headed in the same direction.

Ellie Carpenter poses for a selfie with fans at Adelaide Oval after the Matildas’ 1-1 draw with China.Credit: Getty

The commercial boom in women’s football is leading to greater demand for exhibition matches involving both clubs and national teams, with the two China matches netting Football Australia at least $4 million in ticket sales revenue, while also serving a dual purpose in helping Gustavsson finalise his Olympic plans.

Up to 80,000 more fans will be in attendance at Accor Stadium for the Matildas’ 14th consecutive sell-out on home soil, their first game at the venue since the World Cup semi-final against England. But if Friday night is any indication, they should perhaps temper their expectations in terms of match intensity and aggression.

Players were visibly tired at Adelaide Oval, with Gustavsson revealing post-match that coaching staff were worried about the output of not only those backing up from European campaigns, but also locally based players, some of whom hadn’t had a competitive fixture since the end of the A-League Women’s home-and-away season in April.

“We travel so much during the season ... it catches up with you eventually,” Carpenter said. “Our mind knows that our season is over, so our body kind of automatically relaxes, I think, in some way, subconsciously. So I think that’s also hard, then to come and play these last two games at the back end of the season.

‘We’re professionals at this now but the schedule is jammed. It’s not OK.’

Ellie Carpenter

“When we come out, we want to play our best football, you want to give 100 per cent - and I know every single one of us, we want to give 100 per cent. Some days that might not be able to physically happen, mentally we can’t do that, but we always try our best. It’s just important that we recover well, sleep - so many factors that go into it.

“We’re professionals at this now but the schedule is jammed. It’s not OK.”

Carpenter insisted she was not making excuses for the Matildas’ performance, which she said was not up to scratch.

“We just struggled to get out of our own half, we didn’t find solutions on the pitch - at half-time we found those solutions, and I think the second half was better,” she said. “We had a bit more intensity, we kept it a bit more in front of the third. But that first half, we’ll definitely put that behind us, definitely don’t want to repeat that. We need to be a lot better.”

Gustavsson fielded a weakened line-up, with Foord, Carpenter, Kyra Cooney-Cross, Steph Catley and Hayley Raso not introduced until the 62nd minute, handing starting opportunities to players like Clare Wheeler, Kaitlyn Torpey, Cortnee Vine and Charlotte Grant.

Having forecast that only three or four spots were still up for grabs in his 18-player squad for the Olympics, Gustavsson said one or two players had locked themselves in with their performances against China, but didn’t say who.

“I was definitely happy to get another start, more minutes and try to show Tony what I can do,” Wheeler said. “I always try and do my best and I hope Tony saw something in me. It’s his decision, at the end of the day.”

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