ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

This article is about the Australian national women’s football team at the Women’s World Cup 2015 in Canada. Australia participated in the World Cup final for the sixth time and was able to win a game in the knockout round for the first time, but lost in the quarterfinals against the defending champion. Only in the first edition in 1991 were the Australians missing. The team qualified as second in the 2014 Asian Championship.

Qualification

Australia did not have to qualify for the Asian Championship, but was set like China, Japan and South Korea.

Group phase

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Already by the second place in the group Australia was qualified for the World Cup.

Semi-finals

Final

Coach Alen Stajcic used a total of 23 players in the five games, where he started in the second group game with a starting formation changed to nine positions, in the third group game then started again with the nine players from the first group game, who were not in the starting formation in the second group game. Only five players (Teigen Allen, Caitlin Foord, Katrina Gorry, Samantha Kerr and Emily van Egmond) were used in all five games, but none of them were in all starting formations. Best scorers were Katrina Gorry (3 goals) and Kate Gill (2).

Preparation
In February 2015, the Australians played two Test international matches in Auckland, New Zealand: on the 10th against North Korea (2:1), which was not allowed for the World Cup and on the 12th against New Zealand (3:2), which also qualified for the World Cup. In spring 2015, the team took part in the traditional Cyprus Cup for the second time, meeting the Netherlands (1:0 on 4 March) and England (0:3 on 6 March) and Finland (3:0 on 9 March) as well as the match for 5th place on 11 March on the Czech Republic (6:2). On 7 April, the Australians played in Villach for the first time against Austria and lost 1-2. On April 9, another test match in Falkirk against Scotland ended with 1:1. On 19 May 2015, a penultimate closed-door test against Vietnam took place in Park Lea, which was won 4-0. Both met again on the 21st in Kogarah and this time Australia won 11-0. After that, the “Matildas” fly to Canada.

The team shall:

Order
The squad of 23 players (including three goalkeepers), who must be notified to the FIFA General Secretariat no later than ten working days before the opening match, was appointed on 12 May. On May 18, Clare Polkinghorne and Lisa De Vanna were introduced as co-captains.

Games at the World Cup

In the draw of the groups Australia was not set and was drawn to the group D with middle and North American champion USA.

Sweden and Africa champion Nigeria were also drawn. Australia had never played against Nigeria until the World Cup. The USA is third most opponent after New Zealand (46 games) and China (37) with 24 games