Joe Montemurro made a point of calling out an article that called his football “messy” after Australia’s Women’s Asian Cup started.
To him, messy is good. He wants messy. He wants colouring outside the lines and organic shapes. He wants fluidity and movement. And that’s what he got as the Matildas defeated Iran 4-0 in soggy, humid conditions on the Gold Coast.
It started with Amy Sayer and her cross-shot. When asked about it postgame, she knew the question was coming.
“I’m gonna claim it as a shot,” she joked.
The intention doesn’t really matter. What matters is that it floated goalward, beyond the reach of Maryam Yektaei, and nestled into the far corner.
But one goal simply wasn’t going to cut it after the angst following the Matildas’ 1-0 over Philippines in the opening game. The fans wanted goals, not dominance everywhere but the scoreboard.
And the Matildas answered. Mary Fowler scored her first goal back in national team colours in her first start for the team in 332 days.
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Alanna Kennedy harried the Iranian player and forced the turnover which Caitlin Foord, who had been in everything in the early going, pounced on. Her cross was aiming for Sam Kerr but it skimmed past her and bamboozled Yektaei. A waiting Fowler was there to guide it with a toe poke into the goal.
Montemurro was full of praise for a “very, very good player” in Fowler. And the beauty of her goal was that it was a very, very good player in combination with very, very good players.
A front three of Foord, Kerr, and Fowler was a joy to watch. A tried and true combination enhanced further by Fowler in a position she thrives in.
Kennedy iced the cake with a strike in the first half and a header in the second. Fowler’s cross in from the left ping ponged around the box before Kerr caressed it to Kennedy’s feet. Her strike was low and powerful, rooting Yektaei to the spot. Her header saw her rise above the defence to meet a pinpoint Emily van Egmond corner.
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All in all, it was exactly the game the Matildas needed. Get the goals. Beat the block. Rotate the players — Montemurro made five changes to the starting lineup. Rotate some more — he was able to sub off Kerr, Fowler, and Foord at the hour mark. Play the way they’ve been asked to.
One minute, Ellie Carpenter would hang back, the deepest lying defender, ready to clean up any potential Iranian counter. The next minute, she would be pushing down the flank with her unbelievable engine, someone else manning the back. She would create an overload with Sayer, or Fowler, or whoever else had floated forward to occupy space, confident the space they’d left behind would also be covered.
Messy football looks quite beautiful when it works.
While Montemurro revealed that goal difference wasn’t a consideration when heading into this game, it could have received a further boost if not for VAR intervention — much to the frustration of the parochial Gold Coast crowd.
A 4-0 win means the Matildas enter their final game of the group stage behind their next opponents, South Korea, tied on points and behind on goal difference.
Sam Kerr and Mary Fowler, in combination with Caitlin Foord, is a sight to behold. Albert Perez/Getty Images
The game was highlighted as a must-watch and has only continued to build hype. Montemurro’s message for that match was simple: “We go out to play. We go out to play our football, to win games, to excite.”
But football doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It is a privilege to sit and marvel at Foord, Kerr, and Fowler in full flight and calculate the required goal difference to top the group.
That privilege was never more apparent than during the national anthems.
After not singing the anthem against South Korea, the Iranian players and staff sang while saluting this time. But the noise from the crowd was the real story. There was jeering, whistling, and banging drums in protest.
The mostly Australian crowd applauded the showing and followed it with a full-throated rendition of their own national anthem. A stark reminder of the place these two teams find themselves in, of the privilege of worrying about things like goal difference, not safety.
