Great result by the girls! it will only bring good confidence for the World Cup.

I dont think with the current players they can go toe to toe with England in terms of dominating the ball, England won the euro's last year so it was always going to be a tough game especially in England's home patch.

However its good they got a good plan in place to nullify England's threats in attack, I can only suspect they will play like this in the world cup but I would like to see them be better on the ball so they have better control in games when the match situation gets more tough because these teams have what it takes to be ruthless when they have the ball for long periods of the match.

The FA need to find a way to develop more players like Kat Gorry in their ID system, a classy controlling No.6/8 who is not only comfortable on the ball but gets the team out of pressure through good decision making and good passing.

She's very important to this team.

If you want to win a world cup you need to be able to play multiple styles.

Credit to the spud here, he had them set up well and made England look average.

Cop that poms!

Do you think he ever reads posts like yours that pretty much upend everything he believes and thinks to himself 'I may have got that wrong'.

D2?

Time and time again he gets all sorts of his statements contradicted by facts by other posters but never seems to change stride.

'when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail'.

This has been said before but it's almost like he doesn't watch much football at all. Or at least closely follow it.

The coaching can improve players off the ball running in order to receive and face forwards, supporting the ball carrier a bit mere proactively   and showing for the ball to open more viable passing lanes. 

Ange, Bert, Arnie and Stajic, could improve the Matildas in these facets of play.

I take my hat off to Gustafson for his coaching the  Matildas in  Ball Possession Opposition in this game, achieving gengen pressing / counter pressing in the attacking half, which resulted in one of the goals. 

The patient build ups can be improved with offensive positioning of players.  Then are able to change the rhythm of the game, fast/slow, fast /slow, and make England work harder when we have the ball at times.

Yes, I sometimes get some things wrong in relation to specific matches that I have not seen. One can't be familiar  with  the stats and trends of every game played. 

Moreover, I may not have seen every post in a thread, before I post  - on some occasions. Grazor has raised some interesting stats.

However, I'm often pretty well educated about most trends in global football, despite aberrations at various points in time.

if I were to ask you which coaching practices that have had a specific effect on  global football that Lobanovski, Maslov, Platini, Michels, Van Gaal, Cruyff,  Klopp, Herrera, et al, have had, that affect the  contemporary  game, would you  know, Muz?

I've also had a comprehensive coach education and training  through Football Aus, and the KNVB, like any other coaches who've invested a large portion of time in  coach education - both in the classroom and on the pitch.   A  lot of  UEFA empirical research has been elucidated in Football Aus and the KNVB presentations, that clearly affects outcomes of games.

 I doubt that you want to challenge the methodology of the great minds in the history of football, Muz.

If you want to try and deconstruct the concepts of the aforementioned  luminaries and the  technical departments of the world football powerhouses, good luck to you.     

  

Gorry is an outstanding player at international level.

When you refer back to the  round of 16 games, the possession stats and the results tend to follow the trends of UEFA data presented at Football Aus National Conferences, Grazor.

Thanks for taking  the trouble to research them!


It is so much harder mentally and physically, maintaining concentration, and  it requires  more running effort when a team is in the Ball Possession Opposition phase of play. Hence, most teams prefer playing with the ball.

I'd surmise from watching the final, that Argentina had more  of the  ball than France, because the South Americans appeared to dominate until somewhere around the 70 min mark.

The anomalies in your stats are France playing both England and Morocco, plus the  Portugal/Morocco fixture.

France dominated possession against us in the first game too - and thrashed us. Argentina had more ball than us, and won a relatively close game on the scoreboard.

Croatia, when I've seen them play, tend to be a proactive, possession based team. I'm surprised they had 61% possession against Argentina?

Maybe Argentina were more cautious about their counter attacking capability than their patient build ups. Hence, they played more of a Half Press and Moderate Squeezing game plan to try and maintain most of the Argentinian team defending as a block and facing  Croatia, than chasing them back facing their own goal in accelerated attacks? I didn't see the game, so I can only speculate based on the stats. 

Another factor that could be affecting stats, is the modern phenomenon, emanating from Germany, of counter pressing/ gengen pressing. Klopp is a keen exponent of this. Winning the ball back high up the pitch  and close to the opposition  goal in Attacking Transitions.

 Teams are becoming  more cautious, against some  opposition teams, about losing the ball close to their own goal. They may set up more conservatively to negate the opposition's Attacking Transitions,   in their own Defensive Transitions.

The newer phenomenon  of gengen pressing, can induce more teams to be less likely to take the risk of playing out from the back as much against better teams.  This can also result in more adventurous passing, hence creating the possibility of more turnovers and less team possession, but in less dangerous parts of the pitch.

I haven't been following the women's team closely in recent years. This time last year they were losing left and right and there's that 0-7 loss to Spain. Now all of a sudden they're beating top European teams consistently. What triggered the change in performance?

Clare hunt will be a transfer target in the euro summer window, superb game even more so when pressed in her own 18.


Gorry brat must have allowed her to get a decent kip before this game as she was alit better.

Australia play better as a counter attack team rather than a ball possession team

Jens Fjellström. Only just been put on the books, but has been around the team the last 6 months, really good coach.

No you can't which is why you should be careful when making broad generalisations which are demonstrably false.

You can waffle, pontificate and name drop all you want but if you can't get basic stuff right then it makes it harder to take anything you say seriously.

Would he be responsible for the tightening up of their defence? They've had some impressive efforts of late.

I think we have a good Matildas  squad ATM.


I'd contend the Matildas have underperformed,  given the cattle they have, in most of Gustafson's tenure. Conversely, the Socceroos have probably overperformed, with  the cattle they have, in Arnie's tenure.

The Matildas played against Scotland a few days ago and IMO were outplayed.

I saw the last 5 mins of the first half against England and the rest of the game till the final whistle.  England dominated possession and territory, plus they had a lot more shots on goal.

Sometimes a team can dominate possession, but if it is  mainly in one  team's own half , like the Socceroos v Ecuador second game, it is sterile domination.

If a team dominates possession and territory, it is likely they have dominated the game.  This usually leads to more goal scoring chances. There is a fair bit of UEFA Tech Dept data on this, which has been presented at Football Aus National Conferences.

I suggest England  would beat us most times from what we saw yesterday. They were just a bit unlucky around their offensive  goal. The Matildas  played well without the ball, as did England, but their  structured possession was better than ours, whilst we had some good counterattacks or accelerated attacks. 

Last night got to watch a replay of  the game with a few NPL players. 

This time I saw all of the first half, rather than the last 4mins from  44 to 48mins, added time. Matildas were definitely  better in the first half than the second. Whereas I thought England  dominated in the second half, Australia had a greater percentage of possession and territory in the first. 

Cooney- Cross was very good, both on the ball as and off it. Fowler was too. Hunt the right CB also seems to be a find.

 Carpenter was right on top of the  starting  English Left Winger, until the  other English winger came on as an injury replacement, who was  superb. Was very impressed with Carpenter's defensive skills and decision-making under pressure.  Grant tended to defend and attack well  in the Left Back position too.

I definitely credit the  Matildas' coaching staff with an excellent defensive effort in Ball Possession Opposition. It is just slowing down the build ups to change the rhythm of the game a times, and the Gustafson attacking formation, I'd like to see changed.

For those interested, an adult discussion on The Economist about the physical challenges faced by female footballers v the men's game
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/babbage-sex-differences-and-sport/id508376907?i=1000626993136

Interesting, thanks for posting..... I have a physio friend who was talking about this a few weeks ago. 
His take was more to use this as ammunition against transgender people competing outside their biological gender and I must say, from a pure scientific point of view, he made valid points. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTYFpmsbnIc

Massive story on 60 Minutes last weekend

That 11 vs Iran is taking the Mickey surely. There are 8 of the 10 outfielders who are midfielders or full backs. Polkinghorne and Vine the exception. Seems really unbalanced. 

Well taken goal by Carpenter with her left foot.

The spirit of Holger lives on or was it two centre backs in midfield? 

Can't get this on Paramount or 10Play! So frustrating.

I'm watching on tv (10 Bold), but can also get it online on 10Play.

And can also get it on Paramount+

Carpenter's touch is still fucking horrible.

The level of this Matilda team is worse than  14 year old kids. No skills , low IQ, slow movement, terrible just terrible first touch.  I said that cuz I just watched South Korea trashed Thailand 10-1 just an hour ago and the quality of South korea there is 3 time better than this game.  That South Korea would have trashed this Iran team 15 nil.

If this is the quality we got zero chance to qualify for Olympics with 2 tickets.

It's a depth 11, with players out of position, against a team parking the bus, and it's shows. 

Thailand also parking the bus against South Korea so no excuse with parking the bus they just don't have the skills to outplay them.  And Thailand usually trash Iran 3 goals easily btw.   Parking the bus means nothing if you are superior team but this Matildas just awfully below average.