A lot has changed for the Matildas in the 12 years since they last held the title of Asia's best women's football team.
They've slowly climbed up the FIFA world rankings to become a mainstay in the top 10, including reaching an all-time high of fourth in 2017.
Their most recognisable players have played for some of football's biggest and most-storied clubs: Chelsea, Bayern Munich, Arsenal, Sevilla, Manchester City, Olympique Lyonnais, Atletico Madrid.
They've developed a striker — Sam Kerr — who will almost certainly go down in history as one of the best the game has ever seen.
And they've become one of the most-loved and most-popular sports teams in the country, regularly breaking attendance and viewing records in stadiums and on television.
Despite all of that, the Matildas' trophy cabinet has remained noticeably empty. In fact, outside of friendly tournaments, it hasn't been opened since that first Asian Cup title in 2010.
Why?
That's the question that head coach Tony Gustavsson has ultimately been hired to answer.
Like a research student in the first year of their candidacy, Gustavsson has spent the past 12 months poring over the Matildas' history, separating key stats and figures from the emotion and the narratives that have arguably begun to warp the nation's expectations of this iconic team.
"We haven't won [the Asian Cup] since 2010," Gustavsson told media when announcing the squad last week.
"And we asked ourselves: 'Why?'
"If you look at the stats against Japan [who defeated Australia in both of the last two Asian Cup finals], and you look at competition — not friendlies — we've only succeeded in winning against them once in 11 years. One win in 11 years.
"And it's not just Japan that stands on the other side, but that has tended to be the key opponent to come past to win that title.
"But the interesting question that we've looked at is: 'Why are we going to win this time?'
"We have identified some areas that could potentially be the reason why we haven't succeeded before, and we hope to be able to do it better now.
"I'm not going to reveal all those details now, but we've done a lot of prep work to say, 'Yes, we haven't managed to bring it home, but this is the time to steal it back. It's been somewhere else since 2010, and it's time to bring it back.'"
Preparing to perform
Having now diagnosed the problem — or several problems — that have kept the Matildas from reaching the heights many believe they ought to, this week's Asian Cup will be the next major test for Gustavsson's holistic methodology, of seeing how well "preparation mode" translates to "performance mode".
We got a first glimpse of this process at the Tokyo Olympics where, after a series of disappointing friendlies against top-ranked nations, the Matildas ultimately finished fourth — the best result of any Australian team in an Olympic football tournament.
And while the path they took to get there was rocky — they won just twice and drew another in the five games they played — it was nonetheless an important result for Gustavsson in selling his philosophy to both the players and the fans.
Remember, he — at that point — had only been in the job for six months,
The Asian Cup will be the next test of a similar magnitude.
With another five months of preparation under their belt — as well as coming up against arguably weaker opposition than in Tokyo — Gustavsson and the Matildas have positioned themselves as one of the favourites for the 2022 title.
Once again, preparation has been the driving force of the past few months. And, once again, the build-up to India has been less-than-ideal: One win and two draws in five games against the Republic of Ireland, Brazil and the USA.
But, as Gustavsson's final Asian Cup squad demonstrates, these matches have been useful in another way: Four of the young players called up for those friendlies — Clare Wheeler, Courtney Nevin, Remy Siemsen, and Charlotte Grant — will travel to India, while two others, Winonah Heatley and Karly Roestbakken, attended the pre-tournament camp in Dubai.
These players are not just part of current plans, but also future ones with the 2023 Women's World Cup just over the horizon.
Further, the debut call-ups of stand-out A-League Women's attackers Cortnee Vine and Holly McNamara speak to a deeper level of preparation, with Gustavsson's research highlighting the need for more diverse attacking options against Asian opponents that are more likely to sit in deep defensive blocks and attack in transition.
The return of veteran defensive midfielder Aivi Luik will also free up more creative team-mates such as Kyra Cooney-Cross and Emily Van Egmond to create a more multi-pronged attacking unit, capable of breaking down any type of defence they could face.
"When we're going into performance mode, it's all about what's the best team possible to go create results in a [specific] tournament," Gustavsson said.
"What kind of tactics can we expect? Do we need a player to go back-to-back with the physical demands of our high-pressing game and a lot of running?
"If you look at what it's going to look like in the Asian Cup, we need one-on-one experts that may need to break down a parked bus, potentially, in some of those games.
"Maybe we can make sure that we balance that out right, because I feel we have more cover and more depth in more positions leading into this tournament than we had leading into the Olympics."
Expecting the unexpected
Preparation extends beyond squad selection and experimenting with styles and tactics, though.
As a new wave of COVID-19 engulfs the world, how well teams maintain their bio-security bubbles and contain any potential player infections could make or break their title hopes.
This week, reports circulated that players from Vietnam, South Korea and Japan had all tested positive upon arrival in India, potentially scuppering their Asian Cup chances before a ball has even been kicked.
But the Matildas have been here before, too, playing in a secure bubble both during the Olympics and in the more-recent friendlies on home soil, meaning they're more acclimatised than most to the demands of such circumstances and have already developed their own systems for handling potential outbreaks.
Further, the team will have a COVID officer accompanying them to India to ensure all protocols are followed and tests conducted, while a secondary list of emergency players has been compiled in case some players test positive.
Finally, there is opposition preparation. The Matildas are clear favourites coming up against all three of their group-stage opponents: Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand.
While the latter posed an unexpected and awkward challenge to Australia in the 2018 Asian Cup semi-final, the Matildas comfortably swept by them 6-0 in 2020's Tokyo Olympic qualifiers.
The team will also likely feel confident against the lesser-known Philippines, who are now headed by former head coach Alen Stajcic, whose style and tactics most of the current Matildas squad are familiar with.
Indonesia is the biggest unknown, given their lack of game time — and, therefore, available footage and data — throughout the pandemic. But, as one of the tournament's lowest-ranked teams and whose last appearance came 33 years ago, there is little cause for concern.
Facing familiar foes
Familiarity will be most important towards the tournament's pointy end, with Asia's bigger teams of Japan, China and South Korea posing more significant challenges.
China pushed the Matildas to the edge in 2020's Tokyo qualifiers, while — as Gustavsson noted — Japan have notched far more wins over Australia when it has mattered.
The recent hiring of fellow Swede Jens Fjellström to Gustavsson's back-room staff — a player-turned-pundit who has worked as an analyst and scout for the Danish national team and Malmö FF — adds another layer to the team's preparation to take on their bigger opponents.
"[Jens] is very intelligent," Matildas defender Ellie Carpenter said earlier this week. "He's worked with a lot of world-class teams over the past few years and he knows his stuff.
"He's really good for our team, bringing that extra analytics and ways to beat teams and what makes us the best team to win.
"His insight is really important for us, especially in tournament mode."
And that, ultimately, is where all of this will shake out.
The next two weeks will be one of the last tournament formats available for the Matildas to build towards their most important test of all: the 2023 Women's World Cup.
Indeed, if Australia want to be the best in the world, they must first start by being the best in Asia. And, if Gustavsson's methodology is a sound one, the Matildas' past 12 months of preparation has readied them for their best performances yet.
"Anything can happen in a tournament," Carpenter said, "but, if we're prepared for pretty much everything, we're just going to give ourselves the best shot."
