Catley and Matildas hungry for silver memento for Golden Generation

With a chance to lock in a place at Paris 2024 at hand, Matildas skipper Steph Catley says there's a sense of urgency amongst the team to secure a tangible affirmation of its Golden Generation.

As the Matildas look to punch their tickets to the Paris Olympics against Uzbekistan on Wednesday evening, stand-in skipper Steph Catley admits that there’s a sense of urgency within the team to secure a tangible affirmation of their Golden Generation. 

Second-half goals from Michelle Heyman, Mary Folwer and Caitlin Foord propelled Australia to a 3-0 win over the Uzbeks in the tie’s first leg at the Bunyodkor Stadium on Saturday evening, ensuring that disaster would need to strike in the second leg at Marvel Stadium for them to fail to qualify for a third-straight Olympics. 

The side broke through their longstanding quarterfinal barrier to reach the last four of the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 only to fall to Sweden before then being downed by the United States in the bronze-medal playoff. Another run to the last four followed at a home World Cup in 2023, only for defeats to England and the Swedes to deny them another medal. 

Thus, while the paradigm-shifting nature their recent success means that it has already secured a cultural legacy regardless of what unfolds in the months and years ahead, the side’s last major tournament win remains the 2010 Asian Cup, when only players in the current squad – Tameka Yallop, Aivi Luik, and Clare Polkinghorne – were present. 

And for players like Catley, who made her debut in 2012, there exists a burning desire to secure this Golden Generation of talent a silver lining before it’s too late. 

“With this group, we have come very, very close to achieving something physical; at the last Olympics and the World Cup, we finished fourth,” she said. 

“And that's something that sits pretty heavy within this group. We obviously are all getting a little bit older now and the opportunities for major tournaments are getting thinner. We're definitely very motivated to get something physical, out of the last however many years that we've built this team up to the point that we are now. 

“The football we've played, especially over the last couple of years, we're competing with the best in the world consistently. And we want to continue to do that for as long as we can. But obviously, looking at the core group of this team, we are definitely sort of running out of opportunities.

“We have to qualify for the Olympics first, but we definitely see this as a massive opportunity to get something physical out of what we've done over the last few years. The passion and desire to do that is definitely there.”

For coach Tony Gustavsson, that cultural capital secured by the team across the past four years renders their legacies secure regardless of Paris. However, football matches being something to be won, he added that he felt the players deserved silverware to mark their efforts and that he was desperate to help them achieve that.  

“I think there are different measures of success,” he said. “I think even if we didn't medal in the Olympics, even if we didn't medal in the World Cup, I put the word success to it anyway because this has been the way with this team; they’ve inspired a new generation of players and put women's football on the map for real. And I think that is success itself. 

“But when it comes to medals, I really want that for the players. I want that for Steph. And I want that for the players. For them to get some tangible to have there. So for that sake, I really am going to do everything in my power to help [them] get back because [they] deserve it.”

Whereas the Matildas ended up doing it rather comfortably in the end, one area of improvement Gustavsson is set to zero in on for Wednesday will be finding a cutting edge in the final third. 

Whereas his side was able to reliably move the ball into attacking areas in Tashkent, wayward passing and finishing meant that it took until the 73rd minute for the Uzbek's low block to be finally pierced by Heyman – and even that goal came off a rather chaotic set piece rather than from open play. 

“We learned a lot because we played a lot against [low-blocks] and you always learn something,” said Gustavsson. “And the one thing that this team have really learned is to know that it takes patience, meaning mental patience. Not being slow on the ball, but it takes patience to break down. 

“You see on the men's side, you see on the women's side, you see in Champions League, it's in big tournaments: it's very difficult when there's no space behind the backline. And Uzbekistan did a fantastic job in the first half, I have to credit them. The way they work for each other, the hard work, the defending. 

“It was a mature performance in the sense that we didn't panic. And we kept breaking them down until the spaces opened up. But the other thing that we did learn, watching videos… is we actually got into the final third a lot and we got into spaces to play final passes but the quality and the timing in terms of the final pass execution and finishing wasn't good enough in this game. 

“Was that because we hadn't been together for three months? Was it the surface? Question mark. But that's definitely something we want to improve on… to see the timing and execution of that final pass and the finishing.”

Scoring her first goal for Australia since she netted against Zimbabwe at the 2016 Olympics, Heyman’s presence as a natural striker, in the absence of Sam Kerr, has also given Gustavsson a headache heading into Wednesday — one to go along with Foord again likely starting on the bench due to load management concerns. 

The Swede opted to start Emily van Egmond as a false nine on Saturday – with Fowler occasionally drifting into a similar role – in an XI reminiscent of his World Cup looks sans Kerr. 

However, the veteran attacker fluffed multiple major chances to score in her 64 minutes before she was replaced by Heyman and while it must come with the caveat that it came against a tiring defence, the Matildas opened the floodgates with the latter on the pitch. 

“Both [Heyman and van Egmond] are definitely options to start, especially considering Heyman's performance when she came off the bench,” said the coach. “Caitlin we knew we had to adjust her load a little bit coming in. We'll see in training today how she looks in terms of how many minutes and then whether we use those minutes from the start or in the second half - there's always a plan (over) 90 minutes. 

“You might see a couple of rotations but we also need to remember - or I remind you - that I also think consistency and chemistry is key. You've seen that over the years and also we don't have that many games before the Olympics. We haven't qualified yet. So we need to focus on one game but it's not just the game to qualify, it's also the game to get minutes preparing for a potential Olympics as well. 

“So finding that right balance between consistency and getting playing time together and getting that chemistry together but also giving some players a chance. We look at training today and how many minutes some of those players have and that can influence one or two positions that I'll know more about after training today because we haven't trained since we left Uzbekistan.”