CommBank Matildas Head Coach Joe Montemurro reflected on a hard-fought AFC Women’s Asian Cup Australia 2026™, saying that the tournament has been an excellent journey together.
He was speaking after the team’s 1-0 defeat to Japan in the final on Saturday evening.
“I’ve got 26 warriors out there that for 21 days, have been absolutely fantastic,” he said.
“They've understood our game plan. They've understood our approach. Sometimes, things fall for you. Sometimes they don't. But I think for us, this has been an excellent journey. We played top teams, and that's what we wanted. We wanted to test ourselves against top teams and our ability to attack in tournament football.
“But tonight was a real testament for me personally, because some of the things we're trying to instil happened tonight against probably one of the best teams in the world.”
He lamented the team’s profligacy in front of goal, but explained that sometimes, that’s what happens.
“In other games, we had two or three chances, and we scored two,” he said.
“Today, I think we created probably more chances than we had all tournament and didn't score. So how do you fix that efficiency in the moment, having the coldness to put the ball in the back of the net?”
He said that the way the team played gave them belief that they could perform against the best teams in the world.
“All this talk about philosophy and game style, football and so on… you’re probably sick of me talking about it,” he began.
“But for us to be a top team, we have to keep the ball. We have to be better with the ball. We have to be able to create situations with the ball. And yes, them doing it against one of the top teams in the world in the way we did it, that gives me hope, that gives me belief - but more importantly, it gives the players belief.
“That's the most important thing, because I've said all along this team needs to believe more in who they are and what they can do and what they can achieve. And this tournament has shown that.”
He elaborated on the things that the team would work on moving forward, and what they have learned.
“This tournament has been really important in terms of finding the way when the team's probably not performing well, or there might be a negative result from that perspective,” he said.
“That’s the biggest learning for us. I think we embarked on a process to say, okay, what are the best teams in the world doing, and where do we need to be? One of those things is the discussions we've had many, many times about keeping the ball – we have to control our situation and our destiny.
“From a technical perspective, we need to mould that with our physicality and our mentality, so we need to find that balance, and I think we'll be in good stead. We need to understand where we are, technically, and how we can complete technically. Our mentality is good, our physicality is good. We need to understand those things, and they're the areas I'm trying to introduce.”
Keeping the team’s belief going forward will be difficult – but Montemurro said that his players know they gave the game everything.
“It's going to be hard to bring them together,” he said.
“But they know deep down in their hearts that they gave everything, they did everything they could. They put on a spectacle. They put on an amazing journey for the public, and for their fans.
“We solidified 'us' as a footballing team, and what we mean. We now have to start looking forward, and I'll try to keep the belief going.
“I said to them after the game, you should be so proud to represent this country. You should be so proud of what you've done. Don’t drop your heads. Let’s keep going forward now, because we're at a very good point, a really delicate point, to go forward at the next stage. I'll be trying to keep the belief going.”