Has European football left the Matildas in its wake?

Only if you promote this narrative

Nope. Barty is World Number 1. Queenslands greatest product and officially nicest person. Even her opponents like her. If the Matildas worked as hard as her Australia would win the World Cup in women's football.

Minjee Lee (AUS) world Number 2 golfer..mmmm

LH, I do admit you watch a lot more W-League & Matildas then I do & appreciate your insight. However, from footballing perspective, notwithstanding the poorer quality team they were facing in the Matilda's development team, the French & English sides more skilled both tactically & technically then our Matildas, even at our peak over the last few years. We tended to rely on more out athleticism & brilliance of a few of our players. Even when we beat the Japanese we tended to out muscle them, against Brazil out stamina them & against US, we dug deep. Never thought we were a better footballing nation (women's) against them. This is not discrediting the team, just thinking this witch hunt now on the sacking (which I agree was horrible) is not the main problem.

Formerly of Melbourne City's W-League team, I do believe he also helped Victory's W-League side to a GF win as well (will need to look into that).

You would think FFA would have gotten on the phone with him in the wake of the Stajcic debacle, but no (though would not surprise me if Joe didn't want a bar of them). Sending an inexperienced coach to a World Cup. This has all the hallmarks of Graham Arnold leading the Roos in the 2007 Asian Cup. FFA just really don't get football, do they?

Maybe it was last season Kangas. I googled it and just added the info to my post.

I’m pretty sure that Olympice Lyon are champions of Europe However I have read about the Aussie coaching at Arsenal. He is held in high regard

@Amazon You think 18 professional clubs controlling an entire sport is democracy? What planet are you from? That's the very definition of oligarchy.

That De vanna free was absurd, but for the most part, I thought the Matildas got a reasonable run from the refs.

My take on the Italian coach’s pre match presser for our ‘physicality’ vs their tactical superiority was reminiscent of any previous European or South American coach saying that as pointing to potential excessive fouling on our part. One decent incident in the game where there was no contact by Australian player in the Italian player but resulted in a yellow for de Vanna iirc. Not something I hope I see too soon in the womens’ game...

Demise of courts at the end of the street/lane was common elsewhere, and those that remained became fenced off to free play. And coaching suddenly became centralised at the local club, for a fee.

It’s a lot of things, and not just the coach (experience) either - tactically we have altered our play from the back and through midfield. Although our defence was getting iffy a new approach hasn’t improved it. But it has also affected our attack which was a strength. Also I think, while much has been made of investment in women’s football in Europe in recent years, the players themselves didn’t just start kicking the ball two years ago. So over the next four year cycle it seems financial investment will be crucial while leveraging existing football knowledge and infrastructure to raise the collective team/nations standard. Dare we believe Europe has a huge base already here? Just today it has been revealed the USA and us have been in talks about synergies between our respective womens’ leagues, calendar alignment and player welfare, and investment at improving all things football for women. Seemingly as a measure against the European tide. So while we have infighting, questionable governance, a lack of football facilities, a short season - for the men let alone the women - and only starting to consider relative equal pay for minimum wage, how is Australia/FFA going to be able to keep its end of the deal that benefits both nations? Europe is on the rise and a few of our players may make it there initially but will become increasingly competitive as the rest of the world catches up (sound familiar?). Not discounting South America haven’t collectively got their act together yet. Nor really have we in Asia although are further ahead and Africa are not too far behind I expect. We are in a relatively good place but not capable of making the decisions in the best interest of the (womens’) game. Regardless of this tournament the next four years will be interesting if the last four are anything to go by.

I take your point Nemesis. But my point is that NZ managed their ‘coach crisis’ far better than we did, showing us how to do it. Relatively, NZ are performing much better than expected in their two recent matches against European competition under their new coach, while we have struggled and not got a result against European opposition under our new coach. NZ appointed a coach with vast NT, women’s and WC experience. We appointed a coach who has never been a head coach before, let alone a NT at a WC, and who has never coached women before. NZ are showing us how it’s done, clearly. And while I hope we get out of our group with six points, I will not be at all surprised if NZ fare better than us at this WC.

If you watched the friendly against the Neetherlands, you would have known that AUS created many beautiful chances, but didn't score. Australia hit the upright. We went wide by a small margin. Australia broke the Netherlands defence many times and the Netherlands GK saved them again & again. Australia is amongst the best 3rd placed teams above NZL because we scored a goal & scoring goals matters for the Group Ranking.

Australia's demise in tennis began with the permanent move of the Australian Open to Melbourne.

against a team that smashed us 3-0 a week before the WC, they created three beautiful chances, one hit the cross bar, one went wide by a small margin and the other (I can't recall but it was close). They took the reigning European champions, who made us look average and against whom we never really looked like scoring (despite shots), to within 1 minute of a draw. They lost 1-0 in added time and at times, they broke the Netherlands defence several times. And they did it with a coach who was appointed late last year in rather dramatic fashion. Their crises was real and much worse than our manufactured crisis. They showed us how to get through a coaching crisis and perform well at the WC. Worse position than Australia? On F/A, but I know whose confidence of getting out of their group would be higher, but yeah, I hope we can do it too.

How is New Zealand showing us how it's done? They lost. They didn't score. They're currently in a worse position than Australia.

Well played to NZ overnight. They are showing us how it is done, firstly by beating England in a pre-tournament friendly and then secondly, by very nearly beating the reigning European champions, Netherlands, in their opening WC match. They are no better than us, we routinely beat them every time we meet. But when they had to change coaches building up to the WC, they appointed somebody who knew what he was doing, a former Matildas and US WNT coach no less. NZ has not invested heavily in Women’s football. They don’t even pretend to have a professional league. They are not being left behind by European football. But results tell that they’re leaving us behind. It’s pretty obvious why.

This is not as black and white as saying Europe are catching up with and overtaking the Matildas. The Matilda's have more and more players playing overseas than ever before, it can hardly be said that they are going backwards individually. Where we seem to struggle is tactically with both Stajcic and Milicic (and Van Egmond possibly being the common denominator) preferring a tactical approach of stretching the field and what amounts to a very one dimensional attacking plan down the wings. Crosses from wide areas and balls through a high line to use the power and pace of Kerr, Gielnik, Foord and DeVanna has been our modus operandi for some time now and we've failed to move with the times in developing a more modern nuanced approach to probing opposition defences and creating openings through clever movement of the ball. Saying the W-League season length is to blame is largely incorrect as 13 of the squad are playing in the US league and 2 are playing in Europe (and another in Chidiac who was strangely not picked, is also playing in Spain) so between their W-League (12 games) and overseas leagues (24 games in the US, 30 in Spain) they are playing more than enough football at a high level. The reality for most of the players is that the W-League is compatible with the US league season so they tend to play in both those seasons rather than in Europe. Yes Europe is waking up to women's football but the top leagues are still dominated by one or two wealthy clubs who can afford to bring in the best players in. For the most part the rest of the leagues are filled with teams that are underpowered physically even if they are technically good. And this is still a major aspect of women's football that is often not taken into account. Being technically sound can often be trumped by physical power and athleticism. Barcelona have an excellent team but were crushed by Lyon in the champions league final with Spanish football lagging behind French football significantly in terms of athleticism. The match up was very similar to the Matildas vs Italy game but unlike Lyon, the Matilda's were really not set up with a game plan that would exploit italy, in fact we really played into their hands.