{"id":342555,"date":"2023-10-29T19:12:40","date_gmt":"2023-10-29T20:12:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=342555"},"modified":"2023-10-29T21:00:49","modified_gmt":"2023-10-29T21:00:49","slug":"coach-dodges-awkward-olympics-question-after-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=342555","title":{"rendered":"Coach dodges awkward Olympics question after win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matildas<\/a> coach Tony Gustavsson has sent a message to his side's critics and addressed rumours linking him to the vacant USA job<\/a> after Australia's 8-0 thumping of the Philippines<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sam Kerr and Caitlin Foord emerged the heroes with a hat-trick each<\/a> \ufeffas the national side completed a demolition job in the Olympic qualifier.<\/p>\n

While delighted with the win, Gustavsson explained the shunning of an unwanted tag was most pleasing for him. \ufeff<\/p>\n

READ MORE: <\/strong>Ice hockey player killed during game in 'freak accident'<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\ufeffREAD MORE:<\/strong> Wallabies nightmare over as Eddie Jones quits\ufeff<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Pair of hat-tricks as big guns shine in Matildas win\ufeff<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

"\ufeffI want to put the game in perspective first, when I came on board a few years ago, a lot of people told me 'this team needs to be an underdog, they can't play good football when they're favourites'," he told Paramount+.<\/p>\n

"To put that into perspective when you see what these players did tonight when all pressure's on them, we are the favourites, there's not much space behind the backline but the bravery and the confidence in the attacking game today (was outstanding).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

"We've spent a lot of time trying to improve that over the time and I think the learnings from the World Cup (helped).<\/p>\n

"Then (coming into qualifiers) we had two trainings and two meetings and they play this way, I'm extremely impressed."<\/p>\n

While Gustavsson is likely to lead the Matildas into an Olympics campaign, speculation has persisted around whether he will be appointed to the vacant USA job.<\/p>\n

A report in The Athletic\ufeff<\/em> stated the 50-year-old was on the shortlist for the position, along with Joe Montemurro and Laura Harvey.<\/p>\n

\"Kerr<\/p>\n

Gustavsson said he'd addressed the speculation with his side before the opening qualifier against Iran<\/a>. \ufeff<\/p>\n

"I did it before the tournament even started, there's always going to be noise around, there's always going to be speculation," he said.<\/p>\n

"This group is extremely professional so it hasn't influenced them at all, we have a very good relationship, we know what we're doing.<\/p>\n

"We're focused on the game and one game at a time and one training at a time and I think you saw that in the performance today and we're influenced by nothing more than the performance.\ufeff"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matildas coach Tony Gustavsson has sent a message to his side's critics and addressed rumours linking him to the vacant USA job after Australia's 8-0 […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":342557,"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\/342555"}],"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=342555"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":342560,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342555\/revisions\/342560"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/342557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=342555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=342555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=342555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}