The Matildas’ path to glory at the 2024 Paris Olympics has been laid. How tough is it? And what are their chances of returning to Australia with an unprecedented Gold medal around their neck? Let’s explore.
Let’s be completely honest, the Matildas are Australia’s sporting team. From Broome to Bungwahl, Port Douglas to Port Arthur, everyone is rightly throwing their passion and support toward the Matildas. Aside from the Australian cricket teams, no side represents Australia better on the global stage than Tony Gustavsson’s.
Aside from being really, really good at football, and boasting some of the finest female footballers in the world, including the sidelined Sam Kerr, the Matildas are really, really popular.
A May 31 friendly against China at the Adelaide Oval sold 30,000 tickets in four hours and is expected to be the side’s 13th consecutive home sell-out crowd, a run that extends back to a pre-Womens World Cup friendly against France in July 2024.
With the 2024 Paris Olympics on the horizon, can Australia’s really good and really popular female national football team go where no Matildas side has ever gone before and bring home the Gold?
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Can the Matildas win Gold at the Paris Olympics?
The group
Australia, the USA, Germany and either Morocco or Zambia
In football there’s an old saying which perfectly sums up the Matildas group at the 2024 Paris Olympics: the group of death. That is a tournament football group where three or four of the four sides are top-tier and competitive.
For example, group B at Euro 2024, which features Italy, Spain, Croatia and Albania, would be considered a group of death. As would the Matildas group at the upcoming Olympics.
In the USA, Australia will face a four-time Olympic champion, though their most recent Gold was over a decade ago. Germany, fifth in the FIFA rankings, will hope to perform better than the 2023 World Cup, where they failed to progress from the group.
Even the perceived minnows of the group, Morocco and Zambia, present a significant challenge to the Matildas. Part of the reason Germany failed to progress past the group stage in the 2023 WWC was because of Morocco’s exceptional performances, resulting in two wins, six points and German elimination.
Zambia, the lowest-ranked side in the group according to FIFA, failed to progress from their group at last year’s World Cup, though they were placed in a group with eventual World Champions Spain.
Matildas’ matches at the Paris Olympics
Germany v Australia, Marseille (FRA), July 26, 3am (AEST)
Australia v Morocco/Zambia, Nice (FRA), July 29, 3am (AEST)
Australia v USA, Marseille (FRA), August 1, 3am (AEST)
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Degree of difficulty
Hard.
Make no mistake, this is a tough group for the Matildas. While confidence may be high on home soil about their prospects, the United States and Germany are two of the toughest tasks in women’s international football.
Add to this either Morocco or Zambia, far from the same calibre as the Americans or Germans but enough of a headache in their own right, and the task laid before Gustavsson’s side is daunting.
Australia outperformed both Germany and the USA at the 2023 Women’s World Cup on home soil. In reaching the semi-finals and finishing fourth at the tournament, the Matildas exceeded all expectations and inspired mass waves of national love for them and their star players, who instantly became national treasures.
Increasing the impressiveness of the Matildas 2023 WWC performance was the absence of star striker and talisman, Sam Kerr, for large parts of the tournament. Kerr returned with a bang against England in the semi-final, but largely Gustavsson’s side operated without a striker whose 69 national team goals is far more than any Australian female ever.
A silver lining of Kerr’s absence, recognised at the time, was the opportunity it provided the Matildas to plan for life without the 30-year-old. Now, these Kerr-less learnings will be more important than ever.
In January 2024, at a Chelsea warm weather training camp ironically held in Morocco, one of Australia’s potential Olympic adversaries, Kerr suffered an ACL injury, meaning she will miss the Games. Australia dealt with her loss well in its 13-0 aggregate win over Uzbekistan to secure Olympic qualification.
However, Uzbekistan, 48th in the world according to FIFA’s rankings, isn’t the USA and Germany. How will they fare without Kerr against tougher opposition?
Australia last met the USA in November 2021 for a friendly ending in a 1-1 draw, while their most recent Olympics clash, in the 2020(21) Tokyo Olympics bronze medal match, ended 4-3 in the USA’s favour.
While the 2023 WWC was disappointing, the US have entered a new era, which is soon to be bolstered by the imminent arrival of Emma Hayes as manager in the build-up to the Olympics. The current head coach of Chelsea in the Women’s Super League (WSL), Hayes is a six-time WSL title winner and one of the greatest female managers in history.
Hayes’s involvement in the USA side, which featured seven under-23 players, means they will likely be much improved compared to their most recent World Cup outing. She can still call upon the likes of Alex Morgan and Rose Lavelle, among others, to lead the side and ensure victories are easier to come by than defeats.
Her involvement means Kerr, who’s spent five seasons under Hayes at Chelsea, will still be valuable to Gustavsson even if she isn’t on the pitch. Her understanding of Hayes’ tactical preferences will be critical to the Matildas’ chances of progressing despite her absence.
Germany too will be looking to rebound from a bitterly disappointing 2023 Women’s World Cup. In captain Alexandra Popp and midfielder Lena Oberdorf they have the star power needed to fire themselves to Gold, a feat they achieved in 2016.
In essence, it doesn’t take a prophet to realise Australia’s path to Olympic glory is difficult. Not only will they need to overcome two of world football’s top sides, and injury woes to their standout star, they’ll also need to manage something they’ve never had to before: the weight of national expectation.
Following the success of the Matildas at the 2023 Women’s World Cup, which they went agonisingly close to winning, there is an expectation that victory is achieved, even in the face of significant opposition. That’s the reality of being an elite Australian national team, one which our cricket sides have dealt with for mutliple generations.
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There is always pressure in professional sports, especially at the top. The Matildas are now at the top, at least in Australia’s mind. Having fallen short at the World Cup on home soil, there will be pressure, both within camp and outside of it, for the Matildas to go all the way.
How the Matildas deal with that pressure, in the face of significantly strong opposition, will arguably be the greatest test of the Tony Gustavsson era.
