Can the Matildas break through for an Olympic medal? We answer the burning questions

A year after world cup fever took over Australia and the Matildas shot to celebrity-level fame, the team is about to contest another major tournament in France. If it’s been a while since you’ve paid close attention, here’s a guide to get you prepared for the tournament.

Let’s start with the squad

The coach

Tony Gustavsson has been in the job since 2021, but his contract expires at the end of the Games. What that means for the Swede’s future is no clearer than they were during last year’s World Cup, when speculation was rife he was weighing up his options and he was linked with both the women’s US head coaching role (Emma Hayes has since been appointed) and Sweden’s men’s top job (that one went to Denmark’s Jon Dahl Tomasson).

Gustavsson has dropped hints about needing to see more “investment” from Football Australia to consider staying on, should an offer of an extension be forthcoming. Last month, the most he could offer on the subject was: “We said ‘let’s respect the current contract, work through this Olympics, and then we’ll pick up that conversation post the Olympics’.”

Matildas captain Steph Catley with coach Tony Gustavsson.Credit: Getty

The injuries

Sam Kerr is the big name we already knew about, and the Chelsea striker’s ACL rupture in January (along with identical injuries to fellow forwards Holly McNamara and Amy Sayer) was a big reason Michelle Heyman was recalled to the national team five years after retiring. But this wouldn’t be a major Matildas tournament without an 11th-hour injury cloud.

Steph Catley, who captained in Kerr’s absence during the 2023 World Cup and will do so again in Paris, was ruled out of Australia’s final friendly against Canada with an unspecified “lower leg injury”. Gustavsson has been cagey about the injury, but suffice to say the 30-year-old left-back is in doubt for the opening group game against Germany.

Clare Wheeler celebrates scoring against China in June.Credit: Getty Images

Kaitlyn Torpey was also the victim of a “lower leg injury”, though appears more likely to see some game time in Marseille on July 25, while Tameka Yallop and Teagan Micah are also working through issues.

The situation was compounded during the warm-up for the 2-1 loss to Canada when Caitlin Foord – the beating heart of the team’s attack – reported tightness in her quad and was promptly pulled from the starting line-up as a precaution.

Players to watch

Michelle Heyman: The source of many a Matildas goal over the coming weeks – it is hoped. The Canberra United striker has scored six times since her shock recall in February and has clearly not lost her poacher’s instinct. Which is just as well, because the 36-year-old is just about the only recognised option available to spearhead Australia’s attack. If the sight of Foord icing her quad is a sign of things to come, Heyman becomes more crucial still.

Mary Fowler will knock your socks off.Credit: Ann Odong/Australian Olympic Team

Clare Wheeler: Wasn’t given a single minute of game time at the World Cup, but the Everton playmaker appears set to play a prominent role in France. Because where she has always fallen behind midfield regulars Katrina Gorry and Kyra Cooney-Cross in the pecking order, Gorry has only played 45 minutes since her ankle surgery in April. Not only that, she is so versatile she can slip into other positions. The 26-year-old has played right-back for her club, and against Canada – in the absence of Catley and Torpey – started at left-back, before shifting into the midfield for the second half.

Mary Fowler: The prodigy. There’s something about Mary, even if Gustavsson is still working out how to get the most out of her. The 21-year-old is moved around the field so often that her best position remains unclear (left wing, if you’re asking us). But just when you think she’s drifted out of the game, a Mary moment will knock your socks off.

The opponents

Germany
Thursday, July 25 at 7pm local (July 26, 3am AEST)
Stade de Marseille
The last time Australia played Germany was in 2021 and Gustavsson’s first match in charge was marked by a 5-2 loss. But the 2023 World Cup favourites flunked out in that tournament’s group stage and have been a bit of a mystery since.

After the tournament, head coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg took several weeks of sick leave, and the federation eventually installed veteran Horst Hrubesch for a second stint as interim manager until long-time national youth coach Christian Wuck takes over after the Games.

In theory, the upheaval does not take away from the squad’s phenomenal talent, but the recent Euro 2025 qualifiers tell a different story. Twice Germany had to come from behind to beat a Poland side that has never qualified for a major tournament, and this month’s 3-0 defeat to Iceland was the team’s heaviest loss since falling to France by the same scoreline in 2018.

Hrubesch seems to still be searching for his strongest line-up, meaning this may be the best time for the Matildas to strike. Having said that, he made five changes to his XI for their final pre-Olympics hit-out and routed Austria 4-0.

Zambia
Sunday, July 28 at 7pm local (July 29, 3am AEST)
Stade de Nice
Potentially the trickiest game of the group, and not just because Zambia boast the world’s most expensive women’s players in Racheal Kundananji and Barbra Banda. The 64th-ranked Copper Queens are still relative newcomers on the big-tournament scene, having contested a maiden Olympics and World Cup in the last three years (both group-stage exits).

But they do have some stirring results, including last year’s 3-2 friendly defeat of Germany and April’s Olympic-qualifying playoff win over Morocco. And their counterattacking style will likely place the attacking onus on the Matildas, which has not always ended well.

Zambia’s preparation, however, has been limited, having played no games in May or June. There is also the matter of FIFA’s investigation into the country’s football association amid accusations of money-laundering offences against its president and “undue influence by third parties”.

United States
Wednesday, July 31 at 7pm local (August 1, 3am AEST)
Stade de Marseille
Want to revitalise a champion team who’ve lost their mojo? Hire Emma Hayes. The former Chelsea boss has only had six weeks to get to know her squad and bed in her philosophy, but the players are already speaking highly of their new manager. The situation was looking grim last August, when the two-time defending World Cup winners crashed out in the round of 16 in Australia – the first time in history the Americans had not made at least the semi-finals.

Emma Hayes with her new US squad before her first game in charge – a 4-0 friendly defeat of South Korea.Credit: AP

Within two weeks of the loss to Sweden, Vlatko Andonovski had resigned and the hunt began for a head coach who could take a team in transition and turn them back into the dominant force they once were. Hayes, who won seven Women’s Super League titles with Chelsea and oversaw the likes of Kerr, Fran Kirby and Lauren James, made waves immediately by cutting veteran star striker Alex Morgan from her Olympic squad.

The move signals a tactical shift in direction as much as it does a symbolic one, and the Matildas can expect to be dealing with the electric threats of Mallory Swanson and Trinity Rodman in a final group fixture that could well turn out to be do or die. Initial results on Hayes’ watch have been mixed, with June’s 4-0 and 3-0 defeats of South Korea followed by a 1-0 win over Mexico and a scoreless draw with Costa Rica.

What will be different from the World Cup?

The squad size, for starters. Each nation can only select 18 players in the main squad, along with four alternates. That differs from the World Cup, for which FIFA allows for 23-player squads. But the IOC has made an adjustment to its rules, allowing teams to replace someone from their 18-player squads with one of their four alternate players for injury, illness or mental health reasons, up to six hours before kick-off. Crucially, once the player who dropped out of the squad has been medically cleared, they can return.

Also unlike the Women’s World Cup, which now features 32 teams across eight groups, the Olympics only has 12 teams across three groups in a condensed format. The finalists will play six times within 16 days.

How have the Matildas fared at past Games?

Progressively better throughout the years. The Matildas first qualified as hosts for the Sydney 2000 Games, and went out in the group stage, before making the quarter-finals at Athens 2004. After a 12-year hiatus during which they failed to qualify, they also made the final eight at Rio 2016 but were knocked out on penalties by hosts Brazil. Their best result was fourth place at Tokyo 2020 and, after also placing fourth at the 2023 World Cup, the hunger is there to bring back a medal.

What are their chances?

That depends on how they navigate a tough group, which could at least partly depend on the fitness of key players such as Catley and Foord. To advance to the knockout stage, they must finish in either the top two or as one of the two best third-placed teams. The latter would throw up a trickier draw, with reigning World Cup champions Spain and hosts France (remember them?) looming as potential quarter-final or semi-final opponents.

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