The stardust has certainly settled on the Women’s World Cup in Canada. Already women’s football has moved on; for football never stands still.
The national leagues are now in focus around the globe and the Matildas are enjoying a well earned break or are continuing to test themselves against the best players in the best leagues in Europe and America. Most players will then return home for our own W-League and soon after the attention will shift back on national team duties for Olympic qualification and all going well, the Rio games next year.
But let’s not be tempted to move on hastily without reflecting and absorbing what the World Cup meant to us as Aussies and the Matildas family.
A more in-depth review of the tournament can wait, but for now, we should enjoy the feeling of that momentous tournament in Canada to fuel the fire for the ultimate prize;
a World Cup win.
Let’s not forget what the Matildas achieved in Canada and how much the World Cup means to us, how it is the pinnacle of the sporting world which we must do everything we can to win.
As Australians, our progression in the sport has been consistent, but perhaps slow and sometimes frustrating for those of us who battled through the earlier years without seeing much success.
We failed to qualify for the inaugural FIFA Women’s World Cup in 1991. Then in the next three,(Sweden 1995, USA 1999, and USA 2003) we celebrated qualification but fell short of securing a maiden win in each of the tournaments. The feeling in the changeroom after those failures was one of devastation at not just the results but the realisation that we had a long way to go to match it with the best.
A turning point came when we progressed to the quarter finals in the next two Cups, (China 2007 and Germany 2011). The breakthrough in 2007 gave us our first sense of achievement and received much praise back home and pushed the Matildas brand into the sporting limelight as credible national team heroes. The W-League was established along with the National Curriculum which would serve as our map for Australian football’s long term success. Could we dare to dream bigger?
Now in Canada 2015, we took our biggest leap yet. Before the tournament had even begun, there was a new hashtag circulating the Matildas language. #Believe. The Matildas were daring to dream again. Five months of full-time training camps behind closed doors had borne a confidence to become the best and beat the best. There were high hopes from within the camp that this best ever Matildas team could produce something special.
Progressing from the toughest group, then toppling giants Brazil in the Round of 16, and narrowly falling at the hands of finalists and previous winners Japan, we not only won our first knockout stage match, but we reached new territory in what previously had been a lofty dream – now we could squint and see it on the horizon. The realisation that we could win a World Cup.
We must capitalise on this optimism and start preparing now for France 2019 so we can boast four years preparation rather than the four to five months we had prior to Canada.
Surely all our focus must be towards that event in refining a strong four year cycle. A cycle that includes yearly international tournaments, (ideally the Algarve Cup), to test our conditioning and result-readiness against the best, regular international friendlies and training camps to refine our playing style, as well as the W-League, Asian Cup and hopefully Olympics where there will be plenty of established players as well as new faces ready to stand up and prove they can be world-class contenders. This next year could be utilised by players to heal the body and freshen up. Most would go overseas with various club commitments.
Then we will have a realistic shot. And dare we mention hosting duties for Australia should be top of the priority list as well. We must become world cup champions.
We must win a World Cup.
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