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

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.

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.

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

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.

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! 

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.

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

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. 

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.)

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.

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 :)

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.

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" .   

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.

I pity the fool who selected her. Haha

How many of us would’ve taken fourth before the tournament? I know I would have. There were some good bits and bad bits, but overall a great effort from the girls. 

Not sure if our girls have the technical capacity to be honest, we lack players that control the tempo of the game. (Katrina Gorry would have been useful as she could do this)

We rely alot in transition with our speed but this alone isnt enough against the stronger sides.

Only a few have the technical level such as Foord, Fowler, Cooney Cross but we need more players like these going forward.

I feel its another missed opportunity, to be fair we looked second best and the 4-3 scoreline flattered us but I cant criticise the girls fighting spirit and attitude to not give up but attitude alone won't be enough if this generation wants to remembered for being a successful one.
Absolutely proud they have lifted the women's game to new level but being the best generation ever they need to achieve something great to leave a legacy for future generations.

The World Cup in two years is a perfect place to do it, firstly they need more depth as the current squad isnt enough in defensive and in midfield but secondly which is important is to evolve their playing style because a transitional game with little emphasis in controlling games will be not enough against the stronger sides.
I feel to achieve something special at the World Cup we need the ability to control games when the tempo slows down and you need a stronger tactical footprint but also players that have the technical and tactical capacity to do this.
Do we have the players and coach to this? Not sure but what we have won't be enough.

Missed the second half. Good to see them fight for a win to the very end, unlike the Arnie and his team chasing a bullshit draw…

We should definitely be proud of the Matildas, should’ve won the semi then who knows. I guess that sums up Australian Football “should've”. 

cb stocks ain’t great but kennedy is clearly current #1
polks gone..
Stocks- mccormick, checker, king, Tobin, mcnamara, prior, heatley, tumeth, Chauvet, Wallhead, Nash etc etc

PS. Who kept picking them?

Van Egmond gave the US the ball more than 20 times. No exaggeration - every time she did it I said "F'ing Van Egmond gives the ball to the US" and I got tired of saying it. Almost every successful pass she did was backwards and often there was an option to either turn or play forwards. She single handedly killed our attacking opportunities through the middle.

Kennedy showed the weakness that she always is; making total f@ck ups at some point in games that cost goals. Not content to do it just once tonight though.

Put any other two players on for these two and we would have been twice the team we were tonight.

Arm gnawingly frustrating to watch what had the potential to be a great team play so poorly. We could have owned the US tonight based on the few minutes we got our attacks together.

Polks just did not have the recovery in her legs to play out the tournament. Total legend, but 2 games too many for her to play her best.

A lot of players had poor games tonight. Good moments; great moments; crap moments. The crap moments won out.

I write that game off and look back to the great effort the Tillies made at these games. Last game does not count - swan song for too many players meant we did not see what the team really could do with the chance.

Well done team (with notable exceptions who may have been referred to previously in this post) - you did us proud these olympics. More work to do to prepare for the World Cup; but plenty of talent and quality now free to come through the clutter of incumbent players.

Wasn't a corner mate. Fowler kicked the Amercian girl going for the shot. The ref was correct.

Just say gamesmanship.

The girls I ref yell out 'man on' all the time. In fact I've never heard them say anything else.

This olympics has taught me that we are developing players (men and women)  that are as skilful as the rest of the world, but we really struggle with confidence and handling any sort of pressure. Olyroos vs Egypt in a crunch game just sat back because we were too afraid to attack and didnt have confidence. And the Matildas tonight just make colossal mistake after colossal mistake which i think was a mix of fatigue and pressure 

Then after she went off it took the US a whole minute to take 2 throw in. 
Then the shitty foul against Catley that went the wrong way. 
Then the non corner "due to time"

Having said that the matildas were rubbish for 80 minutes. 
They were lucky to be there though,  but they just don't give up,  something the guys could learn. 
The next couple of years for the women will be tough I think. 

Tony sort ran most players into the ground, not manyplayers used in the tournament

Fowler kicked the US girl. Foul.

Righto to be fair the US were better. Not because they were better but because we shot ourselves in the foot on multiple occasions.