This lady. 7months pregnant and made the round of 16.

 Egyptian star's incredible Olympic pregnancy reveal

Egypt's Nada Hafez put in a strong effort in the women's individual sabre, making it to the last 16 of the competition. But afterwards, Hafez made the stunning announcement that she was seven months pregnant. "What appears to you as two players on the podium, they were actually three! It was me, my competitor and my yet-to-come to our little world, little baby!" Hafez said in an Instagram post. 

"My baby and I had our fair share of challenges, be it both physical and emotional."The rollercoaster of pregnancy is tough on its own, but having to fight to keep the balance of life and sports was nothing short of strenuous, however worth it."Hafez defeated the USA's Elizabeth Tartakovsky in the first round before going down to Jeon Hayoung of South Korea at at the Grand Palais. The 26-year old is competing at her third Olympics. 

Lucy Zelic cops a lot of stick but to be fair she's gone in hard on an topic that could cause her heaps of grief.

Respect for her in this instance.

Many on here (where the most expert opinions are espoused and debated) thought the Matilda's success was achieved despite Gustavsson rather than because of him. The players looked to be dragging us up from where he was positioning us.

To some extent, any professional coach could have produced the results we saw and any number could have done better with the players available for selection in the wider pool. At the least, a forward thinking coach would have had us in a better position looking to the future than we are in today. Failed swansongs for how many Matildas that thought they might be medal contenders to prove they were great at the expense of 'the team' (yes, you do detect a level of defeatist pessimism)?

It makes sense that the older heads would try to flock together to protect their individual interests - and from memory it was some older players who had been put aside that were involved in the Stajcic business so Gustavsson no doubt had that to contend with that power struggle too. Still, if you are paid to be the manager you should be the bloody manager.

I believe the worth of this team is much greater than the product they are delivering but that they are not the best team we should be either fielding or developing.

Not asking for details, but when you mention Sam's attitude do you mean generally negative or positive impact on the team? I have a personal belief based on watching and gut feeling that Sam puts Sam first and foremost and considers herself both untouchable and superior to everyone else (somewhat akin to the attitude of some rugby league 'stars'). If I am misjudging her in the eyes of others I am totally open to hearing it.

I've copy pasted an article on the matildas thread that might help answer that. Mind you who knows what's true and what isn't. 'Sources say'. Fucking lol.

https://forum.insidesport.com.au/2582654/Matildas-Womens-Football?PageIndex=46#bm3126839

LOL its all not true by the last poster who must know more than anyone I guess haha

I saw that thanks, and read what zimbos_05 had posted above. Seemed to conflict with each other so wanted to confirm how I read it.

I know that helping others can make you feel quite important and essential to a team. I know that sitting on the bench or the sideline you still feel the successes and losses personally of a team and if people identify you with a team it can still reflect back on you. I am sure I will never know what truly drives Kerr but clarifying what I see and hear lets me change my mind when I see I have something wrong.

Either way this plays out, there will be tears on the coach tonight .....

The coach or couch?

Getting roasted on twitter and one female football journalist is mad 10 have her on their team

I can't understand how players banned for not being female can retain their strength, physique and athleticism and play as females straight after without everyone being outraged and calling the system into question.

Outright lunacy to bag Zelic out on this one as far as I'm concerned.

HAHAHAH touche. bloody English as a Second language. hahahahha ... Poor Tony .... seems like a harmless schlep.. sort of guy who will bounce back, managing a women's lacrosse team in Winnipeg in a couple of years or something.... 

100%. Look at what happened to JK Rowling and others for calling it as they see it.

There's also at least 2 women boxers in the olympics that failed their tests last year. (Literally competing in a sport where you punch women.)

You can tell that something is suss and it's not just an 'equality' issue, because it doesn't happen the other way round (females transitioning into males competing in elite male sport)

So just to be clear.  I will always support the Matildas. I think Kerr is an exceptional talent  and there is no doubting that. I would never trust Robbie Slater as far as I can throw him. 

In saying that, the Matildas trained at my club a lot during the World Cup. We would assist and be involved. Kerr's behaviour left a lot to be desired. 

I get why the FFA would back her. She is our 'golden girl' and smashing everything in front of her. She's getting more girls into the sport and that equals to more money in the sport. You market your biggest players. No one is analysing the personalities and traits of all the players. As an inspiration she fits the bill. 

What has happened with the Matildas is the same issue that has plagued the A-League, Socceroos and our development. They sailed on good vibes and good reputation at the time. There has been no investment in development or clear pathway towards progression. Why replace Tony when people when there is all the good vibes around him and the Matildas are selling out stadiums. Montemurro probably doesn't want to come to Aus any time soon, so who is the clear replacement? I don't think the FFA has a succession plan. 

If we are being honest with ourselves, Arnie should not be in a job, but the vibes of beating Denmark kept him in. What real progression have the Socceroos made? What players are we producing that are making the jump to the big leagues and being successful when there. What infrastructure is being put in place to ensure teams like the Roar and such are stable? Coaches are being put off their development by the way our courses are run. Not to mention how difficult it is to maintain your qualification. When I got my C Licence, I ran a session by one of the FFA coaches, they gave me advice on changing something. I did that. My session got stopped, I got pulled to the side and ripped to shreds. I felt so inept and terrible. There was no asking what happened or why I did things. I just got torn apart in front of the group. The FA coach didn't even speak up whilst this was happening. One of the other people in my group spoke to the head FA coach later and told him what happened, and only after that did he come and say, "I didn't realise that is what happened." Not many on that course wanted to run sessions after that. People were put off doing the course, but you already paid the $1000, so you just kept going. Then you have issues with not enough officials, the running of state organisation NPLs and such being so demanding, but not rewarding enough for the people investing their time. 

thats interesting about kerr. I'm not sure its arnie's job to produce players for the big 5, make the roar stable etc? Beating 5th place south american team, getting our first world cup win since 2010, then doing it back to back, beating pim's defensive record recently, that's quite a few runs on the board. There are many problems in oz football, but I'm baffled that people the coach is one of them when we haven't had players in the big 5 (even jordan has players getting regular time in ligue 1 iirc)

Arnie has both supporters and detractors.

The main argument for him is that he has got results out of a relatively poor world class team playing the one way that he thinks we can do it - safety first, keep the ball and hold out for a 1 nil win if we score first. He picks some form players to fit into his one system.

The main argument against him is that he has got results out of a relatively poor world class team playing the one way that he thinks we can do it - safety first, keep the ball and hold out for a 1 nil win if we score first. He picks some form players to fit into his one system.

Glad to have been of assistance ;)

Fox with another gold. Now if we can just win both 100m in the pool tonight we should be back in first for a little while again. Not expecting anything in women's 1500m free but hopefully a surprise bronze. 

Torpey overated imo, Grant gave a lot more effort at FB. Both still below matildas level.

backing our defense after we have conceded 8 goals in two games is a strategy.....

Go Colombia…

Van egmond in, wtf…

100m women's free stuffs it and it's 4th and 5th place. First 50 was slow. 

Should have changed shape at half time, 523 big failure 

Colombia draw or win will do.

we would face Spain in the 1/4 final.

Dam, Canada just scored pushing us out.

And thats it. Matildas out

My point about Arnie was seperate to the others. In saying that, I'm pretty sure one of his roles when he took the head coach job was along the lines of having a say in the younger teams and infrastructure. Did he not coach the Olyroos for the 2021 Olympics? As a national team coach, you could be having some say and investment in the development of players because that is your base for your team selections. If you don't develop, you get start with what you have and when those players can't do it anymore, you have no solutions. 

Oh well, Matildas have come crashing to earth. Hopefully the FA will bring in someone who won't allow players to make the call. 

If arnie coaches the olyroos right now id be more optimistic about their chances for a medal than the tillies. All our opponents at the olympic qualifying campaigns had coaches with much better club experience

Easy to blame the players and the coach for this but in my opinion it’s on the FA for this.

They have manifested this to happen, they allowed the lack of scrutiny, accountability and transparency when the standards should be very high instead we got lollipops and cute hashtags on social media.

I should not be surprised by this when we heard crickets from the Olyroos failure to get out of the group let alone qualify, any serious football country would have taken action quite quickly if the results and performances are not meet instead they did nothing when the signs were there sooner even before the World Cup.

On a side note, have any makes won gold for Aus?