There’s been a lot of discussion around the Matildas’ “golden generation” and whether their window to win a major tournament is starting to close.
That may well be the case. But I have a different take: was that window ever actually open, or did we just so desperately want it to be for our own narrative, and in doing so, fail to appreciate the results in front of us?
This is a highly talented squad, with several genuinely world-class players on top of a generational star in Sam Kerr. And with that comes not just expectation, but scepticism from those who question the hype around a team yet to win a major trophy.
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Winning matters, but it isn’t the only measure of a team’s quality or why people connect with them — that was shown clearly with the 74,397 strong crowd on Saturday, and the 1.36 million watching on TV.
Even though they haven’t won anything, this group has still achieved a great deal, often in difficult circumstances.
They reached a World Cup semifinal on home soil, with their best player, Kerr, unavailable for most of the tournament. And they made an Asian Cup final despite losing Hayley Raso to concussion for a majority of the tournament and with Mary Fowler – a key player in our 2023 World Cup run – lacking match practice in her first tournament back from a long-term knee injury.
There has also been a lack of continuity off the pitch. Joe Montemurro has only been coaching the Matildas since June following a nearly year-long stretch where the team did not have a permanent coach. Not ideal circumstances to improve in.
On top of that, it will continue to be difficult to build local talent in Australia given a majority of the players are based overseas so the talent pool at home is weakened. Much like the men’s side, the domestic competition in Australia will never be the best in the world.
And, while football is widely played in Australia, particularly at a young age, it still sits behind other codes in terms of investment, visibility, and development pathways compared to many of the world’s leading football nations. It’s just not the preferred professional sport in Australia.
But the narrative often returns to the same point: that this team has underperformed.
It’s worth asking whether that’s actually the case.
Winning tournaments is difficult in any sense, even at a domestic level. Think about your own AFL or NRL team. How often do they actually win a premiership? And how often have they been among the best sides all season, only to fall short at the final hurdle? Or alternatively, when they have won, were they actually the team that performed well all year or was it just the timing of their run in finals? We always say, it’s the best team on its day.
Now extend that to the international stage.
The margins are finer, the competition deeper with the number of genuine contenders far greater.
Japan, for instance, entered the final ranked eighth in the world (now fifth), while Australia sat at 15th – a significant gap even before accounting for form and squad availability.
Mary Fowler and Steph Catley look dejected. Credit: Brendon Thorne/Getty Images
And yet, the expectation surrounding the Matildas often feels absolute: win, or you’ve fallen short.
That reflects, in part, Australia’s broader sporting mindset. Success is often framed in binary terms, particularly for teams that capture public attention the way the Matildas have.
With that support comes scrutiny, much of it not overly grounded in a clear understanding of the international landscape.
Watching Saturday’s match, the question I had – was a win genuinely expected?
A home crowd provides an advantage, but against a higher-ranked and in-form opponent, the outcome was far from certain.
So for me, defeat in that context does not necessarily equate to failure.
Perhaps the issue is not that this team has failed to win a major tournament, but that expectations have drifted away from the reality of how difficult that achievement is, and how much this group has already accomplished.
