The Matildas’ seven-game winning streak is over after a 46th-minute strike from Nicola Docherty handed Tony Gustavsson’s side their first defeat since last September. Yet again, Australia’s women put in a performance that hinted at promise, only to pair it with maddening shortcomings that threaten to derail any efforts to deliver on that potential.
Normal angst can now resume with a once-in-a-lifetime home Women’s World Cup just 103 days and two more friendly matches away. But perhaps this should not come as any surprise, even with the extended run of wins that preceded Friday’s outing in London. It has been a theme in both victory and defeat for years, ever since Gustavsson took over and every game became a piece of a much bigger puzzle, always analysed first and foremost through the prism of the looming World Cup.
