I pity the fool who selected her. Haha

I don’t think 4-3 flattered us. Take away Kennedy’s two shockers and really we defended quite well. Yes Rapinoe scored from the corner, but that’s a legit tactic in women’s football with keepers being shorter and less athletic.

Really, it’s amazing that Kerr scores as many as she does with the all the aimless crosses and long balls she gets.

Conceding 4 goals is considered defending quite well?  

Sentiments like this is why Australia girls will never win anything of note. As long as they "try hard" .   

If you take away Kennedy's two shockers, we only conceded 2. Still not great mind you and I thought our defence in the last game was woefully inadequate. Just lucky that the US aren't the sharp tool they were previously.

We showed desperation more than defence many times.

Put Carpenter back in and Polks back to the bench and it would most likely be saying we defended well at the end of the game.

Well I'm sure some won't like my comments :)
IF thats where its at we finishing 4th some bloody how womens football is so meh its not funny.
The bar i guess is Sweden for they looked HEAPS better than us and have some players with skill and ability.
We scrapped by NZ,smoked by Sweden, just got over the Poms and got outdone by a aging USA.
Hoofball at its best, hope and pray it lands near Sam, thankfully she makes up for all the average play across the park.
Midfield lacks technic/abilty, the amount of unforced errors you bite your arm off.
The amount of free space 2nd ball 80% of the time the opponent picks it up.
The backs, well 2/3/4 pass's across each other or pass back from the middle its then hoof up the line or middle.
OMG how many of those get cut off.
It reminded me when you played a game at school amongst many who are not players and you have the obvious stand out or 2 that win you games for without them it would be nothing.
I'm sorry but thats the way I saw it for every game was like biting your arm off :)

Tend to agree with this, I also think GB were the better team in the quarter final but we got lucky.
And talking about playing out from the back, the most ridiculous part I remember was in the first half yesterday when van Egmond, 2 metres out from the goal (our goal) with an opponent breathing down her neck, makes a 1 metre pass to Micah who is standing on the goal line. Fortunately Micah managed to get the ball away.

It's the rabid, obsessive compulsion to play out from the back NO MATTER WHAT that shits me most. (And that pass on the line is a perfect example of a player who was rattled by America's press.) Sometimes if they're pressing high you don't have to hoof it 60 metres but you can dink it 30 or so and skip over their forwards to make a quick counter.

Every friggin coach we get thinks we're Spain.

At least Staj played to our strengths. (And no that wasn't just hit and hope.)

Well it's 4th in a 12 team comp and probably NZ, China, Zambia and Chile were making up the numbers. The World Cup will be a lot harder with more European teams making it. Having said that everyone always says how far ahead the European Nations are getting and yet they've failed to win another major tournament. Only Sweden (2nd) in the top 4. 

Suggest the Matildas organise matches during every European international window as decent euro teams will be preparing for euro 2022 and as  the u20 Matildas have no competitive matches good idea to give them some experience with the seniors

Yeah so I don't know if we would have beaten Canada. They were very good last night. Congrats to them.

2 silvers in a row for Sweden.

I don't know how Sweden didn't win that in extra time and even on the penalty shootout, well done to Canada for showing their composure but overall there was some poor penalties taken.

The ironic part of the last pen was decided by the last name of Grosso (Julia Grosso) who is also left footed, so an interesting stat right there! 

Broken record - so I'll only mention it once more unless someone wants to discuss it specifically.

Van Egmond killed our midfield options every game except one; where I made a comment about how I finally saw something of why she is in the squad. In that one game she ran with the ball at her feet through heavy traffic time and again and often in a forward direction. She drew players in and passed the ball off to a teammate.

But that was the only game she did it.

In every other game she took up a central midfield position in space but pointed backwards to anyone looking to pass her the ball. If they gave it to her anyway, she passed it back into the defensive line. If she called for the ball and they gave it to her she passed it back to the defensive line.

Her long passes were speculative rather than skilfully delivered and rarely found a team mate.

She should not have been in the team, and playing with her the way she was not only were we basically playing with 9 effective outfield players - but worse, she was also stopping any progress through the centre. You cannot win games when you have a player actively blocking and undermining your attacking options through the middle.

She is tall and has a famous name. I suspect those two are the only reason she was there.

I am blaming her, but was she playing to the coaches strict instructions? A bigger worry if she was.

Must be weird to play against your girlfriend in a Bronze medal match.. surely dating opponents would cause a stir with team mates?

What about playing with your girlfriend and staying in the same room on camp? (Which I think caused a ruckus when Staj was in charge.)

I doubt it would be a problem playing against your girlfriend in any case. 99% of the athletes across all the sports all know each other from the circuits they're on. You can see the camaraderie between them when they do well. I think getting one over your girlfriend would be good bantz.

Tameka Yallop has a kid with a sheila from the NZ team.

I agree with your summary. I will add that the centre backs don’t belong at this level. They’re slow and clumsy. If they had two “decent” centre backs, at the very least they would have won Bronze.

https://www.matildas.com.au/news/commbank-matildas-23-player-squad-named-contest-vital-paris-2024-asian-qualifiers