Why the Matildas are at a crossroads

The term “worldwide search” has a double meaning in Australian soccer. More often than not, it means promising the world and delivering an atlas. The clubhouse leader in this department remains Tony Walmsley, who was the Central Coast Mariners’ technical director in 2015 and embarked on a worldwide search for a new head coach. He ended up appointing himself. It didn’t go so well. Expectations have since been set accordingly.

This time, however, Football Australia means it. So thorough is its hunt for Tony Gustavsson’s full-time replacement as Matildas coach that it has given itself an extension, stretching its deadline out by bringing Tom Sermanni back in from the wilderness as an interim measure so that the search can continue in the background.

Tom Sermanni is back for a third stint as Matildas coach, this time on an interim basis.Credit: Getty Images

While the cynical reflex is to criticise Football Australia for going back to the well instead of injecting fresh ideas into the team, this decision makes an awful lot of sense. The fresh ideas are still to come; we’ll get to all that in a moment.

For now, though, there is probably no better person to give this team what it needs than Sermanni, an icon of the women’s game in Australia who coached the Matildas for more than a decade across two different stints. Sure, he’s 70, and it’s been a while since he worked as a head coach in his own right. But Sermanni is not only familiar, he’s a favourite of many of the key figures in the Australian dressing room, most of whom - Sam Kerr, Caitlin Foord, Steph Catley, Mackenzie Arnold, Alanna Kennedy, and a few more – were handed debut caps by him. He knows what makes them tick.

At a time like this, after such a bruising Paris experience, the Matildas could do with someone they trust coming in, keeping things simple and bringing a bit of joy back into their game.

Think of Sermanni as a palate cleanser, a quick bonus course to prepare you for the next dish. And that’d be especially helpful in the case of Kerr, who will make her return for Chelsea in the coming months after her ACL injury. If he can be the one who successfully re-integrates her into the national team set-up, that’s one less thing for the incoming coach to have to worry about.

Steph Catley and the Matildas had an Olympic campaign to forget in Paris.Credit: Getty Images

Which brings us back to Football Australia’s worldwide search. It will probably be less extensive than the one they conducted four years ago, as chief executive James Johnson has said that process gave them a fairly good understanding of who was out there and potentially interested in the job, knowledge that will underpin this process.

But with no home World Cup to look forward to as part of the next four-year cycle, and with the expectation that the squad will need to evolve rather dramatically by the end of it, this role will appeal to a different sort of coach. It’s not necessarily one for a “win now” manager (notwithstanding the home Asian Cup in 2026, probably this team’s last huge trophy chance for a while), but instead, someone who is prepared to build something. At the very least, they need to spend more time in the country than Gustavsson did.

Could Joe Montemurro be convinced to leave Lyon?Credit: Getty

Australia’s FIFA women’s ranking has slipped to No.15, the lowest since 2007. Two other things have recently happened, which may give cause for concern for anyone interested: Australia’s under-20s failed to get out of their group at the World Cup, held goalless through three games, and the under-17s failed to even qualify for theirs.

The window of opportunity for global success has probably closed for now, and the talent indicators aren’t great for the next generation, so some would-be coaches may no longer see this as an appealing opportunity. Still, the Matildas are a prestige brand, and as long as they’re attracting big crowds, are still capable of competing at World Cups (qualification for which, the Asian Football Confederation announced last week, will now be detached from performances at Asian Cups and run separately like the men), and still have Kerr playing up front, plenty of people are still going to want to coach them.

Like last time, there is little chatter on the grapevine about Football Australia’s intended targets. Nobody had flagged Gustavsson’s name until a couple of days before he was announced, and again, few details have emerged about the process thus far, though it is still very early.

But some targets can be safely guessed at, or ruled out; it is perhaps telling of Mel Andreatta’s chances, for instance, that Football Australia has gone for Sermanni as a short-term option, instead of giving the long-time assistant a running audition.

The obvious one is Joe Montemurro, but the problem there is the ex-Arsenal and Juventus coach signed for Olympique Lyonnais, the historic standard-bearers of women’s club soccer, in June. That doesn’t mean he’s off the table, but it does mean that if Football Australia is going to make him an offer, it needs to be serious and substantial enough for him to even contemplate leaving so soon.

Internationally, there are a couple of choice free agents. Former England international Casey Stoney, the foundation coach of Manchester United’s women’s team, was recently sacked by the San Diego Wave despite finishing top of the US National Women’s Soccer League last year.

Herve Renard, meanwhile, stepped away from the French national team after overseeing their home Olympics and, before that, their penalty shootout defeat to the Matildas in the World Cup quarter-finals, although he has expressed a desire to return to the men’s game.

Whoever it ends up being, with this team at a crossroads, it’s the right call by Football Australia to pump the brakes and take their time with this appointment. So long as they get the next call right, too.