{"id":323705,"date":"2023-08-15T10:09:05","date_gmt":"2023-08-15T10:09:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=323705"},"modified":"2023-08-15T11:59:17","modified_gmt":"2023-08-15T11:59:17","slug":"consistency-coach-drops-tough-matildas-selection-hint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=323705","title":{"rendered":"'Consistency': Coach drops 'tough' Matildas selection hint"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matildas<\/a> coach Tony Gustavsson is tonight preparing to make the toughest selection\u00a0 decisions of the World Cup.<\/p>\n

The Matildas will tomorrow night take on England for a place in the final of the FIFA Women's World Cup<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The side is buoyed by a Sam Kerr<\/a> who appears to be back at full fitness, as well as a capacity Sydney crowd willing them home.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> British tabloid's bizarre claim ahead of Matildas semi-final<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Boxing debut revealed for two-metre tall NRL beast<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> England football fans locked out by sneaky Aussie ticket ploy<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking to media on Tuesday afternoon, Gustavsson perhaps gave an indication of where he was leaning with his selection thoughts, saying "consistency", as well as "chemistry", were "key for a team to be successful in a tournament".<\/p>\n

\"Australia<\/p>\n

"I have some tough decisions to make because I have a lot of player availability," he said.<\/p>\n

The Matildas opposition, England, is a side they will be intimately familiar with \u2013 as will England's stars be of the Matildas.<\/p>\n

Several Matildas stars \u2013 including Kerr (Chelsea), Steph Catley and Caitlin Foord (Arsenal), Mary Fowler and Alanna Kennedy (Manchester City), and Mackenzie Arnold (West Ham) all play in the WSL in England.<\/p>\n

\"SUpport<\/a><\/p>\n

Many of their current and former teammates will be in the Lioness' side.<\/p>\n

The Matildas handed England their only loss under supercoach Sarina Wiegman to date, when they beat them 2-0 in a friendly in April.<\/p>\n

"What we do is look at trying to start as strong as possible, but finish even stronger," Gustavsson said.<\/p>\n

The coach said that means not only thinking about how they want their starting XI to look, but who's going to be in the finishing XI should the game to extra time or penalties, as the France clash did.<\/p>\n

"What kind of tool or game changer do we think we need in a game like this? What type of players? Whether it's speed, or a person to close out a game," he said. <\/p>\n

"There will be some long conversations (on Tuesday night) and some tough decisions to be made, because a lot of players deserve to start, but a lot of players also deserve to finish the game and win it for us."<\/p>\n

The Matildas clash with England will kick off at 8pm Wednesday at Stadium Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matildas coach Tony Gustavsson is tonight preparing to make the toughest selection\u00a0 decisions of the World Cup. The Matildas will tomorrow night take on England […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":323708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323705"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=323705"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":323713,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323705\/revisions\/323713"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/323708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=323705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=323705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=323705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}