“I’m much more comfortable today than I was four years ago,” James Johnson says. It’s just over a week on from the confirmation that Tony Gustavsson would not be returning as coach of the Matildas and the Football Australia chief executive is back in his Barangaroo office, now part of the unit entrusted with finding a replacement. Perhaps just as pertinently, Johnson is also reviewing the past four years and mapping out what’s to come next on and off the field.
Because while FA will appoint someone with the same title as Gustavsson in the months ahead, their tenure will be marked by significantly different challenges. Not only is the hunt on for someone capable of leading the Matildas into a home Asian Cup in 2026 – winning that not an unfair expectation – but also ushering in a period of squad rejuvenation and renewal.
Ten of the 18 players in the Matildas’ Paris Olympics squad – as well as Sam Kerr, who is in the final stages of rehabilitation for an ACL injury – will be in their 30s by the time the 2026 tournament rolls around. If the past four years were about peaking for a home World Cup with a golden generation, the next four are about planning for what’s next. “We have to reset the strategy,” says Johnson. “Because reality is, the next four years look very different to the past four years.”
Members of the federation’s football development committee – former Matilda Heather Garriock and Sam Ciccarello – will lead the hiring process, with contributions from Johnson, head of national teams Gary Moretti and the organisation’s “disruptor”, chief football officer Ernie Merrick. Besides Johnson, none were present when Gustavsson was appointed but it’s this group, combined with what he says has been constant monitoring of the coaching market, that has the FA boss feeling confident.
“We’ll set a strategy, and the coach needs to be able to execute it,” Johnson says. “When [exactly] the coach is going to look at blooding new players and when the coach is going to go to win games, that’s something for the coach to execute.
“If you plan four years, no matter which team you are, you’re going to have players transition out over that period. We have a unique challenge in that this current group of players have been playing together for a very long time. They’ve done a great job and I don’t think there’s going to be a large movement of those players before the women’s Asian Cup.
“But once we get into 2027 and 2028, we may very well have [some in that group move on]. So the coach is going to have to juggle that balance between making sure we’re at the top of our game and we’re ready to go for the women’s Asian Cup, but also making sure that the coach is setting ourselves up for the World Cup in Brazil and Olympics in LA, which is going to require blooding of young players.”
The thing about replacing a golden generation of talent is that, for all one’s best-laid intentions, there is going to be an inevitable drop off as the group ages and moves on; Paris perhaps foreshadowing of that. And it doesn’t matter how good your developmental programs are, you can’t count on having an equal-level talent to replace Kerr, Caitlin Foord, Steph Catley, or Katrina Gorry when they step away – it’s called a “golden generation” for a reason.
Instead, as Johnson acknowledges, it’s about planning and mitigation; understanding the growing pains that come with a changing of the guard, a carefully managed transition, and quick rebound with a new crop. One area flagged was close cooperation and connection with the newly established women’s under-23 side, which will likely necessitate a new coach spending more time absorbed in the Australian domestic scene than the European-based Gustavsson did.
“You have ebbs and flows when it comes to talent,” says Johnson. “But that’s also why it’s important to invest today in our youth programs, [where] we’re going to bear fruit in years to come.
“The reason we’ve done that is to try to manage the risk of those ebbs and flows, knowing that players can’t play forever. That’s been our strategy to mitigate that risk, by investing more than we ever have [in youth programs] so that our players can transition into the senior team as seamlessly as possible.”
Something of an elephant in the room amidst all this talk of generational change is that the Matildas, largely off the backs of the personalities of the members of the current squad, have also become a commercial juggernaut for Football Australia. Their popularity is attracting a bevy of blue-chip sponsors and driving what is being reported as an imminent, $200m broadcast deal.
In football, change is inevitable. But not only could a sustained downturn in results threaten this golden goose but so too could the departure of a group of players that have become household names.
For a self-described “sports business person” in Johnson, there’s cognisance that not only does this team need new difference-makers on the pitch, it’s going to need new stars.
“The Matildas brand today is very strong, it’s very powerful, it’s in every corner of the Australian community and mainstream,” Johnson says. “[Squad renewal] does mean that we have to continue to evolve as a brand. It means that we need to continue to tell stories.
“Storytelling is something that we’ve got a lot better at, and it’s something that we’re very focused on over the next cycle.
“We’ve tried to build the brand of this team around performance on the pitch but also with broader priorities in mind. We’ve built a legacy around this team.”
