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Clare Polkinghorne’s hamstring.
That is all it took to blow the Matildas off beam on the 2019 Ladies’s World Cup in France.
After their opening group-stage loss to Italy in Valenciennes, the veteran centre again reported soreness at the back of her leg. Head coach Ante Milicic mentioned on the time it was as a result of she needed to carry out over 300 metres of pointless sprints throughout the sport due to FIFA’s new rule that inspired linespeople to maintain their flags down as a result of presence of VAR.
Polkinghorne skilled individually from the group within the following days, strolling sluggish laps across the coaching floor and doing brief, testing sprints up and down the grass. But it surely wasn’t sufficient. By the point the second group sport in opposition to Brazil arrived, the defender wasn’t able to take the sector.
With the pre-tournament withdrawal of Laura Alleway, that left the Australian nationwide workforce with only one pure centre again — Alanna Kennedy — for what become a must-win sport for the Matildas to progress to the knock-out levels.
And so the anxious hypothesis started: Who would substitute Polkinghorne on the coronary heart of defence? Would Steph Catley, one of many biggest left backs on this planet, be pulled out of place so as to cowl that function? In that case, then who would substitute her? Gema Simon and Teigen Allen had been on the bench, as was younger Karly Roestbakken, however how assured was Milicic in throwing on these untested gamers in a sport as essential as this one?
Ultimately, he wasn’t. Polkinghorne’s absence created a domino impact that noticed Elise Kellond-Knight pulled out of defensive midfield to cowl Catley, whereas inventive midfielder Emily Van Egmond was dragged again to fill the void left by Kellond-Knight. Chloe Logarzo and Caitlin Foord swapped spots too.
A single hamstring pressure left virtually your entire Matildas workforce off kilter.
Whereas the following sport in opposition to Brazil grew to become memorable as a consequence of Australia’s 3-2 comeback win, the issues they needed to overcome had been largely of their very own making, issues which a totally match workforce arguably would have prevented altogether.
Brazil’s first purpose that day got here by a penalty given away by a panicked Kellond-Knight following a defensive scramble, whereas their second noticed a cross reduce straight behind a torpid Van Egmond earlier than striker Cristiane out-muscled Catley to bury a cross within the air.
The Brazil sport uncovered a deep crack that the Matildas had been papering over for years: a precarious lack of squad depth, notably in defence.
Soccer Australia knew it, too. Its 2020 Ladies’s Efficiency Hole Report — printed the yr after the Matildas had been knocked out by Norway within the Spherical of 16 in France — discovered Australia had one of many “shallowest” squads in worldwide soccer, together with the fewest variety of “fringe” gamers and an over-reliance on a “core” group that performed a far larger variety of nationwide workforce minutes than whoever got here subsequent.
This was one of many key reviews that FA handed to Tony Gustavsson when he took over from Milicic in January of 2021. One in every of his two main tasks was to restore the issues of the previous, to forged the widest attainable internet throughout Australian soccer so as to backfill the squad with depth, selection, and flexibility.
It has not been a simple highway. It began in early 2021 with the Swede needing to see the instruments he had at his disposal, to witness their strengths and weaknesses, and to determine precisely the place and learn how to maximise one and minimise the opposite.
The losses piled up as he tried and examined completely different gamers, completely different methods, and completely different combos. He was like a scientist in a lab, experimenting with the variables. Friendlies had been used as testing grounds, alternatives for a swathe of latest faces to really feel what worldwide soccer was actually like. The velocity, the depth, the expectation, the stress.
Gamers like Charlotte Grant, Kyra Cooney-Cross, Courtney Nevin, Cortnee Vine, Clare Hunt, Alex Chidiac, and Clare Wheeler stood out from the over 90 different Australians he noticed in a number of camps over his first two years in cost. Step by step, he drip-fed every of them into the workforce, opening a door that every of them had thought was closed to them not so way back.
And slowly, one after the other, they’ve every discovered their place.
Grant has change into an efficient deputy for each Ellie Carpenter and Steph Catley. Cooney-Cross has cemented herself as an indispensable midfielder, alongside Katrina Gorry, who was known as again into the workforce by Gustavsson following childbirth and fading type.
Vine has change into a weapon on the wings, capable of play on each side and down the center, utilizing her lightning velocity to stretch and strike by opposition strains. Wheeler has usurped Kellond-Knight because the workforce’s most pure wrecking-ball defensive midfielder, whereas Chidiac has proved her price as a game-changing substitute whose dinky little dribbles and passes can break defences aside.
However none are maybe as important because the least skilled member of the squad: Clare Hunt, who made her debut in February of this yr and has simply 5 caps to her identify, however has stepped into the opening crammed by the injured Alanna Kennedy and settled alongside Polkinghorne on the coronary heart of defence.
On Monday, they had been all included within the Matildas’ ultimate 23-player squad for the upcoming Ladies’s World Cup — the end result of the previous few years of painstaking work behind the scenes.
“It hasn’t all the time been a pleasing journey,” Gustavsson mentioned on the squad unveiling on Monday.
“Working with the gamers has been nice, however when it comes to all of the criticism acquired, I believe I did a nasty job at explaining the method and what we’re going by in blooding these gamers in opposition to actually powerful opposition.
“We had 18 debutants over the past yr and performed the hardest schedule within the historical past of this program. There was a report introduced to me exhibiting that we wanted to work on depth, and that we had very unhealthy stats in opposition to top-ranked opposition.
“Over the past two-and-a-half-year funding into the roster, we needed to verify we constructed depth in positions that this workforce had struggled with in tournaments, the place gamers had been compelled to maneuver round into completely different positions.
“We would have liked to put money into younger and new gamers. We checked out completely different positions and formations. We performed actually powerful opposition. And that is why we will announce seven debutants for a World Cup. It is wonderful.”
On paper, the squad heading into the 2023 Ladies’s World Cup is now one of many deepest the Matildas have had with this era of gamers. There are no less than two gamers who can comfortably cowl each place on the sector, with eight defenders and eight midfielders making the ultimate reduce, along with 4 pure forwards who can all interchange amongst themselves.
However tournaments aren’t performed on paper. Lower than three weeks out from the opening sport on July 20, there are nonetheless a few query marks hanging over the gamers who made the ultimate 23.
The largest is Kyah Simon, who has solely simply returned to motion following an ACL tear final October. The Tottenham Hotspur ahead hasn’t performed a match for the Matildas since April 2022, and even whereas she has been current at camps off the sector, she has not had a likelihood to actually play inside the methods Gustavsson has been designing and refining with his aspect over the previous yr.
Which is why her function on this World Cup might be completely different to tournaments previous. Her lack of match health and worldwide sharpness means she might be utilised as an impression substitute, just like Chidiac, launched within the closing levels of a sport when one thing particular is required. And as one of many solely Australians who has ever scored at a World Cup, there are few gamers who know learn how to embrace a second of such magnitude fairly like Simon.
Alanna Kennedy is one other participant who has struggled for match minutes with Australia this yr after a long-term shoulder harm she sustained with Manchester Metropolis. Her final sport for the Matildas got here in opposition to Canada final September, and he or she hasn’t performed a match for her membership since March.
Harm clouds additionally encompass a few different gamers resembling Mary Fowler (again), Tameka Yallop (ankle), Teagan Micah (concussion), Van Egmond (again) and, ominously, Polkinghorne (foot).
However the place the 2019 squad fell aside piece by piece, the 2023 squad seems like a far sturdier puzzle. In Nevin, Hunt, and the veteran Aivi Luik, Gustavsson has workable centre again replacements for the previous guard of Polkinghorne and Kennedy.
In Luik, Vine, Chidiac, and Wheeler, he has midfield and ahead reinforcements in case Fowler, Yallop or Van Egmond aren’t out there. And with the career-high type of Mackenzie Arnold, Olympic goalkeeper Teagan Micah can really feel reassured {that a} sturdy set of gloves just isn’t too far-off.
And what if, God forbid, one thing occurs to Sam Kerr?
Whereas membership and nationwide groups have begun to determine the Matildas captain out, discovering simpler methods to isolate her, reduce off her reference to teammates, and attempt to mark her out of the sport, Australia now have sufficient various in-form choices in Vine, Caitlin Foord, Hayley Raso, Chidiac, and Simon that her absence might not be as keenly felt as what it was a number of years in the past.
“That is the beauty of being a striker — they will isolate me for 90 minutes, however I actually solely want one alternative,” Kerr mentioned on Monday.
“Over the previous yr enjoying with Chelsea, I’ve actually centered on that. I have been actually, actually remoted, however I have been capable of work on being alive for that one second, and really feel like I’ve actually succeeded.
“I used to be the child 11, 12 years in the past going to my first World Cup, and knew the opposition had been taking a look at different gamers like Lisa De Vanna and Sarah Walsh, so I knew that was my alternative to do one thing.
“If two persons are marking me, which means another person is free. It could be another person’s event to shine, and that is all a part of being within the workforce. So no matter it takes to win, actually.
And if I take two gamers [away], good. We have got electrical velocity all over the place else, so good luck to them.”
It has taken a very long time, individually and collectively, for these 23 gamers to reach at this level. Every has overcome their very own respective questions and challenges — bodily and psychological — to show themselves worthy of the event of enjoying a World Cup on residence soil.
After 4 years of rising pains, they’re lastly right here. And it will take greater than a bung hamstring to derail them now.
Full Matildas squad:
Goalkeepers: Mackenzie Arnold, Teagan Micah, Lydia Williams
Defenders: Ellie Carpenter, Steph Catley, Charlotte Grant, Clare Hunt, Alanna Kennedy, Aivi Luik, Courtney Nevin, Clare Polkinghorne
Midfielders: Alex Chidiac, Kyra Cooney-Cross, Katrina Gorry, Emily van Egmond, Clare Wheeler, Tameka Yallop
Forwards: Caitlin Foord, Mary Fowler, Sam Kerr, Hayley Raso, Kyah Simon, Cortnee Vine.
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