If the first Tuesday in November stops the nation, training sessions on the past two Tuesdays of the World Cup have stalled the Matildas.
Was the side unlucky or pushed too hard by coach Tony Gustavsson in suddenly infamous high-intensity training sessions?
Australia’s disastrous 3-2 loss to Nigeria in Brisbane followed a confounding preparation in which three players, including captain Sam Kerr, were injured during rugged workouts.
The shell-shocked Matildas are at grave risk of being booted out of the Cup on Monday. They play Olympic champions Canada in Melbourne needing a win to be certain of making the next round.
Pressure is on Kerr to hobble out and rescue a side falling flat without her. She has a calf injury, Mary Fowler and Aivi Luik have sore heads while everyone else scratches theirs over how their twin concussions could have happened at a single training session. The secrecy has been baffling.
You could have heard a pin drop inside Brisbane Stadium, one of the great cauldrons of Australian sport. A joint rendered stone silent as the Matildas blew a one-goal advantage to concede three.
The Matildas had been called on to tap into the spirit of Queensland State of Origin teams winning with players so battered and bruised they could barely take another step; the spirit of Jeff Horn, the slugger who beat the legendary Manny Pacquiao right here. But the footballers fell flat.
Emily van Egmond received the cursed forward’s position as Kerr again watched from the bench. After the national anthem, Kerr turned to the 49,156-strong crowd, pumped her fist, gave a thumbs up and beamed from one ear to the next. Didn’t last long.
Everything Kerr means to the Matildas was shown in the moments straight after van Egmond’s goal in the first minute of first half added time.
The Novocastrian calmly nudged the ball to the promised land of the netting and took off in celebration. She ran all the way over the sideline, screaming and then leaping into Kerr’s arms. In the side’s most heightened moment, even if their captain wasn’t on the park, they converged on her anyway.
A goal down, Nigeria’s Super Falcons still looked tougher to get through than a medium-rare steak at The Breakfast Creek Hotel. They were quick on the break and threatened to score at any minute. They did so in the last minute before half time, through Uchenna Kanu.
Australian nerves started rising higher than inflation. The Super Falcons scored again in the 65th minute, through Osinache Ohale. And in the 72nd minute, through Asisat Oshoala. And that was that. The Matildas’ Alanna Kennedy pulled one back in the 10th of 11 second-half added minutes but the defeat was damning. The devastation of early elimination is a real possibility. All the support, the hype, the expectation, the hope. It hangs by a thread.
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