Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Sydney: Australia will play two friendly matches against FIFA Women’s World Cup 2015 winners USA in September as the Matildas gear up for next year’s Olympic qualifiers the FFA (Football Federation Australia) announced.
The first game will take place on September 17 in Detroit, Michigan, with the second scheduled to be held three days later in Birmingham, Alabama as the two sides renew acquaintances after meeting in their opening match at Canada 2015 (pictured), which ended in a 3-1 victory for the Americans, who went on to defeat defending champions Japan 5-2 in the final.
“We can’t ask for better preparation [for the 2016 Olympic qualifiers] by playing the World Champions and the country who is the number one ranked team by a long way now,” said Australia coach Alen Stajcic, who guided the Matildas to a quarter-final finish in Canada.
“We had a great game against them in the World Cup and we’ll be looking to renew that battle and see how much we have improved in that two or three month period since the World Cup.
“We’ll just be looking to build on our momentum. We played pretty well in Canada and showed a good level of football, so our goal is to keep improving on our consistency, on our maturity on the ball, there are still a lot of areas we need to improve on.
For Stajcic, the matches against the USA will provide an invaluable first building block for the Matildas as they attempt to make progress through a difficult qualification for next year’s Olympic Games.
“We showed we can be a competitor on the world stage and this will be another good test for us to see how much we have matured and also to fine tune our play before we get to the difficult Olympic qualifiers in February,” Stajcic said.
“This is the first building block on our way to the Olympic Games qualifiers.”
As a significant boost in preparation for these matches, a host of Stajcic’s squad are currently plying their trade in the USA’s National Women’s Soccer League, something the 41-year-old knows can only be highly beneficial for the team’s development.
“The more players we have playing overseas the more experience they’re getting and the better it is for our national team,” he said.
“Michelle Heyman scored a goal on her debut for Western New York Flash, while Sam Kerr struck the winner for Sky Blue FC last week, so they’re showing it wasn’t a fluke that we performed well on the world stage and I know that they’re going to bring this experience back into the national team.”
“For the players currently playing in America we’ll meet them over there and the domestic players will probably come in for one camp prior to the matches.”
Photo: FIFA/Getty Images