With a warm post-World Cup glow emanating from the thousands of green and gold-clad supporters filling the stadium, a somewhat unfamiliar starting 11 Matildas – at least compared with their last eight games – lined up for their first step on the path to Olympic qualification. Clare Wheeler and Teagan Micah were in the World Cup squad but didn’t see any game time, as well as a whole new face in midfielder Amy Sayer, who narrowly missed out on the home tournament, making her seventh appearance for the senior national team. In the end it was a familiar face, wingback Ellie Carpenter, who opened the scoring after 18 minutes of scrambling attacking. Followed, eventually, by substitute Sam Kerr late in the second half.
Tony Gustavsson had warned with a wry smile the day before that there could be “rusty performances” from the Matildas in this opening Olympic qualifier due to the short lead-in time of just a few days and with players travelling from their northern hemisphere clubs. “I do think we were rusty tonight,” the coach said after the win. “If you look at conversion rate as well, normally our conversion rate is much better in terms of those chances that we have. This could have been a game where we scored about five or six goals considering what we created.”
