After suffering their worst result in an Olympics campaign in 24 years, the Matildas have been left to question where everything went wrong in Paris.
Australia suffered a 2-1 loss to football giants Team USA at Marseille Stadium on Thursday morning AEST, failing to progress beyond the group stage at an Olympics for the first time since Sydney 2000.
It was comfortably the team’s best performance of the campaign, but they needed at least a draw to qualify for the knockouts.
Coach Tony Gustavsson, who announced his departure on Thursday, declared the Matildas weren’t ready for last week’s tournament opener in Marseille, which understandably raised alarm bells.
Football Australia spared no expense for the Matildas, who became Australia’s favourite sporting team after last year’s inspirational World Cup campaign on home soil.
Following a month-long camp in Spain, the footballers arrived in France with a 20-person support team to create the ideal high-performance environment. The Matildas were the only members of Australia’s Olympic team that travelled to France on a private jet.
However, they suffocated under the added pressure and stumbled off the blocks, losing 3-0 to Germany before conceding five goals against Zambia, ranked 63rd in the world. Australia’s defensive frailty was glaring throughout the group stage, while Sam Kerr’s absence was sorely felt.
“We just didn’t click as well as we usually do in tournaments,” Matildas player Kyah Simon told Channel 9 on Thursday.
“Watching from afar, it didn’t seem like we were that fluid team, as dynamic and aggressive as we usually are.”
Australian football icon Robbie Slater provided a blunt assessment of the Matildas’ Olympic campaign, labelling it “an unmitigated disaster”.
“A quarter-final berth should have been the bare minimum requirement for the Aussies, even in the absence of their best player Sam Kerr,” Slater wrote in a News Corp column.
What’s worse is all the money wasted by Football Australia on the Olympics campaign.
“I believe the way the squad was pampered was embarrassing and probably part of the reason they performed so badly.”
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The Matildas, who finished fourth at the Tokyo Games three years ago, have never achieved an Olympic medal, failing to win a major tournament since the 2010 Asia Cup. The team’s recent commercial gains and record-breaking television ratings have set a precedent for women’s sport in Australia, but their off-field success has not translated into podium finishes.
“The question is — is this particular group of players being put in a position where they can excel to the best of their capability? Certainly in this tournament you cannot say yes,” former Socceroos representative Craig Foster told Stan Sport’s Olympics Daily.
“This is a great squad … why was USA so superior to us this morning?
“The emotion is always very intense. We love the team so much, we are so proud of them, and we have to make sure that emotion is channelled into a really calm assessment – I think the work on the ball is missing. We are an unbelievable counter-attacking team when we’re allowed to use our speed we are amazing.
“What we have is this extraordinary generation who all started very young, and so have an immense amount of experience. They are all now playing with the world’s top clubs.
“The challenge we’re having is the football of the other countries is evolving, and our football hasn’t evolved much in the last three years.
“In terms of systems, yes, they can play football in different ways, but within the system, the football has not really advanced.
“Those questions need to be asked, just calmly now, and really analyse where football is going, where the women’s game is going.
“The investment means (other) countries are really accelerating, and we need to keep up with that.
“We have a generation of players who are extraordinary, we need to find a way now in the next four years … to be playing in a manner that they can legitimately take on the best in the world.”
The Matildas were undeniably dealt the short straw with a challenging pool group, but when the 2026 Asia Cup rolls around, it will have been 16 years since Australia’s most popular national team lifted any silverware of value.
“Sometimes it’s good shift to kick us up the bum and push us a bit further. There are good and bads out of underperforming,” Simon continued.
“We will see what the future holds.”
Ahead of the Paris Olympics, Australian women’s rugby sevens captain Charlotte Caslick acknowledged the disparity in expectations between her side and the Matildas.
“We’ve been at the top of our game for years and years, always up there like a podium finishes in all of our series, and we probably don’t get the recognition,” Caslick told News Corp last week.
“I don’t know if (the Matildas) get out of the pool stages. They (have a) really tough pool to get through. But I think we’re kind of held to the standard of we have to podium to get any sort of attention.”
The Australian women’s rugby sevens team are perennial podium finishers, winning gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics and triumphing in this year’s world sevens series. However, they finished fourth in Paris this week after a shock loss to Canada in the semi-finals.
