SYDNEY — “There’s always a little hiccup along the way.”
Matildas head coach Joe Montemurro was speaking about the team’s imminent trip back to Perth and the mental and physical load that will add to this team, on top of the pressure that comes from moving into the knockout stages at the Women’s Asian Cup.
Their 3-3 draw against South Korea, while entertaining, wasn’t enough to push them up the standings and consigned them to second place in the group and the five-hour flight out west for their upcoming quarterfinal.
But the hiccup comment applied to so many moments across the 90 minutes.
There wasn’t anything that could be done about Steph Catley‘s concussion. She blocked a cross with the side of her head in the sixth minute, and while she was assessed and allowed to return to the field of play, she was later substituted in the 19th minute, replaced by Courtney Nevin.
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But there were also the self-inflicted bumps and bruises. Nevin’s handball leading to a converted penalty by South Korea. Rushed passes causing turnovers. Failed clearances falling to dangerous South Korean attackers.
Montemurro shared his frustration at two of South Korea’s goals coming from transition moments where Australia lost control of the ball.
“I probably am more concerned that we didn’t control the game with the ball well and we should have,” he said.
“We’ve got to keep the ball better.”
“It’s been the thing that I’ve been endorsing from day one and when we do it, we do it well. And then we started to force things when we didn’t need to and the momentum wasn’t there.”
“The game got scrappy and it got to a point which I didn’t like to be honest.”
The Matildas appeared unsure how to answer the questions being asked of them and resorted to old habits.
“I think sometimes we did go long when we shouldn’t have gone long and that was a little bit frustrating from my perspective,” Montemurro said.
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Among the disappointment, there were bright sparks as well.
Alanna Kennedy‘s incredible goalscoring run continued. First with a striker’s finish as she lurked in the six-yard box and reacted quickest to a bobbled pass. Second, with a 98th-minute equaliser, creating the deflected lob which Sam Kerr ran on to. She followed in on the run and was able to turn a picked pocket into a goal.
She earned the praise of her coach, who emphasised the importance of goals from the midfield in tournament football.
Then there was Kerr and Caitlin Foord combining for a vintage goal to give the Matildas the lead heading into the break.
Foord was given time and space to run at a shapeless defence following a turnover and slipped a ball in for Kerr, who hit it first time. A beat of her chest and a guttural roar was matched by the crowd.
In fact, the front three of Foord, Kerr, and Mary Fowler — who played the full 90 — once again looked good. The issue seemed to be that they were doing most of the attacking work. Fowler would drop deep to collect the ball and execute a pinpoint cross or pass to a waiting Kerr or Foord.
The midfield — a third different combination in three games — took time to build into the match and didn’t offer enough of the line-breaking required to burst through the congested central space.
Australia had to settle for a 3-3 draw and second place in their group. Zhizhao Wu/Getty Images
Montemurro will have five days to address the things he didn’t like from this game and you could see his brain already whirring as he sat in the press conference.
He was balancing in real time his disappointment in how his team had handled large parts of the game with keeping morale high as they move into the next phase of the competition, where the difficulty and pressure only increase.
So yes, there’s always a little hiccup along the way. And if the Matildas want to progress in this tournament, there will be other snags and obstacles.
They’re going to have to wade through the long flight and the time zone changes. They’re going to have to recover mentally and physically from the game and the travel. They’re going to have to work around key absences. And they’re going to have to beat one of China or North Korea to progress through to the semifinals and lock in World Cup qualification.
But a story’s no good without adversity. Are the Matildas up to the challenge?
