{"id":369110,"date":"2024-02-19T22:59:55","date_gmt":"2024-02-19T23:59:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=369110"},"modified":"2024-02-20T01:02:47","modified_gmt":"2024-02-20T01:02:47","slug":"matildas-veterans-message-to-axed-young-gun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=369110","title":{"rendered":"Matildas veteran's message to axed young gun"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matildas<\/a> veteran Emily van Egmond has\ufeff admitted life as a professional footballer can be tough and urged young gun Courtney Nevin to fight hard to win back her spot in the Australian squad.<\/p>\n

Matildas coach Tony Gustavsson made four changes to the squad<\/a>\ufeff for its final Olympic<\/a> qualifiers, which included blooding 23-year-old defender Kaitlyn Torpey at the expense of Nevin, a 22-year-old defender.<\/p>\n

Nevin made her Matildas debut at the age of 19\ufeff and quickly became a mainstay of the squad, including at the 2023 World Cup, when they captured Australia's imagination on a fairytale run to the semi-finals.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Major change coming to the Melbourne Cup<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Rising star bolts into NRL top 50 at just 21<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Gallen calls for major NRL change after 'horrible' trials<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

But the Leicester City rising star is not a member of the 23-player squad for the two-match series against Uzbekistan, beginning on Saturday night (AEDT).<\/p>\n

She faces a difficult challenge in her bid to get back in the squad for the Olympics, provided Australia qualifies, given the squad will be cut from 23 to 18.\ufeff<\/p>\n

"It's not easy as a professional footballer," van Egmond said.<\/p>\n

\"Tameka<\/p>\n

"Everyone's striving towards the same achievements, and especially for us as a team, for us it's to qualify for Paris<\/a>\ufeff. It's a smaller roster than it was at the World Cup. I think everyone's in a position now where it's a challenge and it's competitive, and at the end of the day that's what you want as a national team; you want the most competitive squad that's available.<\/p>\n

"At this given time obviously the coaching staff have picked Kaitlyn Torpey. It's terrific for her to come in and to experience the national team.<\/p>\n

"But I always have the mindset that just because you maybe don't make one camp, you can't count it out [and] you've just got to keep working hard. Every single person who's going for a position on that Olympic roster will be doing exactly that."<\/p>\n

\"Emily<\/p>\n

Australia, ranked\ufeff 12th in the world, will face world No.47 Uzbekistan in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, from 8pm on Saturday (AEDT).<\/p>\n

The two sides will then meet at Melbourne's Marvel Stadium at 8pm on February 28.<\/p>\n

The Matildas will be without megastar forward Sam Kerr, who ruptured an ACL on \ufeffa training camp in Morocco with Chelsea in January<\/a>.<\/p>\n

"As a professional athlete you're always wanting to win, no matter what the circumstances are," van Egmond said.<\/p>\n

"But for us this is part one of the stepping stone, which is to qualify, and I think if we can do that in these next two games we can check that part off. But until we've done that I don't think it's necessary to look too far ahead. The goal is to be there at Paris and right now\ufeff the focus is on Uzbekistan and getting two wins against a competitive team in them."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matildas veteran Emily van Egmond has\ufeff admitted life as a professional footballer can be tough and urged young gun Courtney Nevin to fight hard to […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":369112,"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\/369110"}],"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=369110"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":369116,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369110\/revisions\/369116"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/369112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=369110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=369110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=369110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}