{"id":365817,"date":"2024-02-07T00:00:47","date_gmt":"2024-02-07T01:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=365817"},"modified":"2024-02-07T02:02:46","modified_gmt":"2024-02-07T02:02:46","slug":"what-snubbed-matilda-was-told-in-brutal-phone-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=365817","title":{"rendered":"What snubbed Matilda was told in brutal phone call"},"content":{"rendered":"

Telling Matildas<\/a> midfielder Alex Chidiac she had been overlooked for the Olympic<\/a> qualifiers made for "one of the toughest phone calls", coach Tony Gustavsson<\/a> has revealed.<\/p>\n

Chidiac\ufeff, a member of the Matildas' 2023 World Cup squad, was not one of the 23 players named for the two-match series against Uzbekistan, taking place this month.<\/p>\n

It means she's fallen short of Matildas squad selection for the second time in succession, having already been snubbed for Australia's two-game series against Canada in December<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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"What I did say to Chids … is that I'm really happy she's in a club now that values her qualities, and she gets to play in a pure 10 role, a linking player, in a playing style that suits her," said Gustavsson, referring to Chidiac's mid-season switch to Melbourne Victory in the A-League Women's competition.<\/p>\n

"She's just come back to play minutes. She didn't really get the minutes when she was abroad [in Mexico and the USA].<\/p>\n

"It's for her to find back the joy and the love for the game again and just play the way Chids can play."<\/p>\n

\"Matildas<\/p>\n

Chidiac, a 25-year-old attacking midfielder, lost out in the selection battle to Mary Fowler and Emily van Egmond \u2014 whose places in the squad were never in question \u2014 as well as Tameka Yallop, Chloe Logarzo and Amy Sayer.<\/p>\n

Chidiac has played six matches and racked up just under 500 minutes of game time since returning to Melbourne Victory\ufeff in December.<\/p>\n

"We're still going to keep an eye on her, but in terms of this selection for this roster, the player types and the performances, if you look at the No.10s that we have selected, we've selected players that we think are more beneficial for us in this specific window," Gustavsson said.<\/p>\n

"That doesn't mean we haven't kept an eye on Chids and won't keep an eye on her moving forward, as well.<\/p>\n

"But I like to see her playing with a smile on her face when she's at her best and she's starting to do that now."<\/p>\n

Australia, the world No.12, will face Uzbekistan away on February 24, before meeting the world No.47 at Melbourne's Marvel Stadium on February 28.<\/p>\n

The winner of the two-match series will be one of two Asian Football Confederation (AFC)\ufeff sides that lock in tickets to the Paris Olympics<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Telling Matildas midfielder Alex Chidiac she had been overlooked for the Olympic qualifiers made for "one of the toughest phone calls", coach Tony Gustavsson has […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":347443,"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\/365817"}],"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=365817"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":365819,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365817\/revisions\/365819"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/347443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=365817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=365817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=365817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}