Tony Gustavsson: "We're going to try to beat England our way."

Tony Gustavsson and Tameka Yallop fronted the press in the lead-up to the CommBank Matildas' second friendly of the April window against England.

Yallop was clear that the team had taken a lot of positives out of their narrow defeat to Scotland.

“We obviously took a lot of learnings from the Scotland game and progressed that into our next game,” she said.

“I think we’ve had some positive vibes, we played some good football against Scotland and unfortunately we didn’t get that goal that we were after, but it showed what we can do and also what we’ve got left to do as well.”

Gustavsson agreed, emphasising the importance of the long-term vision for the group.

“This is all about the bigger picture and what we can take away from the World Cup,” he said.

The Lionesses are currently on a thirty-game unbeaten run, defeating teams in that time such as the United States, Brazil, Spain, and Germany. It means they present a tremendous challenge, possibly the greatest that the CommBank Matildas have faced in Gustavsson’s tenure.

This challenge is exacerbated by the players unavailable to the team at present. He listed Alana Kennedy, Steph Catley, Chloe Logarzo, Elise Kellond-Knight, Emily Gielnik, Kyah Simon, and Caitlin Foord as the players unavailable even before the camp started.

“We had two knocks in training yesterday, so I have two other question marks for the line-up tomorrow,” he explained.

“But what we said is, no matter who steps on the field, we need to stay true and loyal to our identity, and test ourselves. Even though we might be down the depth chart, we need to see where are we with our identity and our playing style.”

Gustavsson pointed to the match-ups between the two teams – players that play for Vittsjo lining up against players that play for Chelsea, players for Sydney FC lining up against players that play for Barcelona, and so on – to highlight how big the test is for his team.

However, he emphasised that, no matter the scale of the challenge, the CommBank Matildas would play in their own distinctive style.

“I know what lives inside this team,” he said.

“The DNA of the never say die attitude in the Matildas way before I came, and we’re going to bring that tomorrow. We’re going to show that we’re going to be in your face, aggressive, we’re going to press, try to be who we are, and we’re going to try to beat England our way.

“If we don’t and we cop some goals, we’re going to learn a lot about where we are in the process of playing the way that we play.

“We’re not going to shy away from this challenge. It’s the toughest challenge maybe ever, since I came on board, but we’re not going to shy away from it. I know these players won’t. That’s who they are.”

Gustavsson spoke at length about the balance between consistency and experimentation in the national team, and how everything in his tenure was part of a longer-term plan.

In terms of centre forward options when Sam Kerr is unavailable, he listed players such as Mary Fowler, Caitlin Foord, Cortnee Vine, Emily Gielnik, Kyah Simon, Remy Siemsen and Larissa Crummer as options that have seen minutes as centre forwards since he has been at the helm.

“If you go to the last game, why Larissa played, it’s because she is one of our best pressing forwards,” he explained.

“Sometimes if we’re winning, for example, we also need to have a pressing forward who can offload minutes for Sam and come in and kind of kill the game for us if we’re up 1-0, 2-0, and we want one of the best pressing forwards in the world. Larissa is one of those.

“It’s different tools in different games. You know how much I talk about game changers, so we need to have different game-changers from the bench for the World Cup. Some players are competing for a starting spot at the World Cup roster, some players are competing for a game-changer.”

In midfield, it is a different story, with Kyra Cooney-Cross and Katrina Gorry regularly starting together as the two holding midfield options throughout the last several windows.

“There’s always a long-term plan,” he said.

“You look at when are players available, for different games and different camps. One of the reasons we play a lot of minutes with Mini [Gorry] and Kyra [Cooney-Cross] now is that they play in the Swedish league, which means they’re going to have minimum preparation time in the lead-in to the World Cup - on the training ground, and some closed-door games.

“From the outside you might just look at one camp or one game and say why didn’t they try that, why didn’t they do that? But for us, it’s always been a bigger picture, and a two-year plan.”

Tameka Yallop finished the press conference by calling on the CommBank Matildas underdog status and never say die attitude.

“We’ve always in the past shown that when we are the underdogs we do step up and we can perform, and I think that’s just what we’re looking to do this game,” she said.

“I think it’s a challenge and it’s a challenge that we’re excited for. No matter what team we put out we have the football in mind that we want to play, and that’s our focus.

“Everyone’s pretty excited for the challenge tomorrow."

Match Detail

England v CommBank Matildas
Date: Tues, 11 April 2023 (local) / Wed, 12 April (AEST)
Venue: Gtech Community Stadium, London
Kick-Off: 7:45 pm (BST) / 4:45 am (AEST)
Broadcast: Network 10 and Paramount+