Five burning questions as the Matildas aim to seal Olympic berth

Tony Gustavsson’s Matildas play the first leg of their Olympic qualifier against Uzbekistan in Tashkent on Saturday night. We take a look at the biggest questions surrounding the team.

How will the attack look without Sam Kerr?

Yeah, yeah – we know, this question got asked about a million times during the World Cup last year, and we’ve already got a decent idea from it of how they might line up in her injury-enforced absence.

When Kerr did her calf and missed the first part of the tournament, coach Tony Gustavsson went with a ‘false nine’ system, in which the Matildas don’t actually replace Kerr with an out-and-out striker, and instead have one of Mary Fowler or Emily van Egmond floating in that central attacking area, rotating from midfield. It worked well, to the point where some were asking (ludicrously) if they were a better team without Kerr.

The Matildas will have to do without Sam Kerr for the next little while.

But Gustavsson has a few other options up his sleeve. Emerging midfielder Amy Sayer, who he has taken a particular liking to of late, could also operate within that structure. He has liked the look of Fowler playing on the left wing, where she’s been used at Manchester City this season, and where she was deployed during the preliminary Olympic qualifiers last year – but that’s also where Caitlin Foord does her best work. He could also ask Fowler to just play as a straight-up No.9, which she did through much of her junior days.

Or he could look to one of the other traditional strikers in the squad, which brings us to…

Can Michelle Heyman and Chloe Logarzo turn back the clock?

The last time Michelle Heyman made an Australian squad, Alen Stajcic was still the coach. Sam Kerr still played for Perth Glory. Scott Morrison was only just settling into life as Prime Minister. The plot of the movie Contagion still felt wildly unrealistic.

It’s been a long time between drinks for Michelle Heyman.

This is all to say it’s been a very long time since her last call-up in 2018, and a little bit less long for Chloe Logarzo, who has at least played under Gustavsson, and probably would have gone to the World Cup if she wasn’t injured.

Not so long ago, Heyman and Logarzo were considered part of Tillies’ furniture, and have been welcomed back into camp with open arms. Whether Gustavsson is prepared to hand them substantive roles right now is another matter.

Heyman has scored 20 goals in her 61 caps but is 35 years old – and it’s a bit of an indictment on Australian soccer that, with Kerr out, the next best available striker is close to retirement age. That said, she’s been scoring goals for fun at Canberra United, has the runs on the board and deserves to be there.

Logarzo, a 29-year-old midfield terrier, is also in good form at Western United and well clear of her knee and foot problems. Her best football could still be ahead of her.

How much better will Gorry, Hunt and Grant be?

Keep an eye out for these three in particular because of their recent transfers, which have lifted their respective club careers to new heights. Katrina Gorry, 31, has landed at West Ham United – the sort of move to the game’s top table that her fans would say is many years overdue. The Olympics could be her last major tournament.

Clare Hunt, 24, was the revelation of Australia’s World Cup campaign, her performances earning her a richly deserved contract at Paris Saint-Germain, where she has become a staple of their defence.

And then there’s Charli Grant, 22, who now plays for Tottenham Hotspur, and can already sense that the exposure to such high-level training and matches in the FA Women’s Super League is lifting her skill set. It is hard to imagine any of them going backwards. So how much have they advanced individually, and in turn, how much will that advance the team?

West Ham’s Katrina Gorry, pictured eluding Arsenal’s Vivianne Miedema, is proving one of the WSL buys of the season.

Will any of the new faces actually get a look in?

Only Tony G can answer that question. It will be interesting to see if he differs from his usual strategy of relying solely on the same 11 to 14 players to get the job done, and whether the uncapped Sophie Harding and Kaitlyn Torpey will take something away from this camp other than some frequent flyer miles and status credits. Gustavsson’s pick-and-stick method kind of worked at the World Cup, but when the team ran out of gas against England in the semi-final, it was clear he’d asked too much of too few.

This two-legged tie against Uzbekistan is obviously critical, with the winner to book their spot at the Olympics, so it’s not really the time for experimentation. And Gustavsson has shown time and again that he doesn’t really trust fringe players in big games. But Harding is the only proper striker in the squad aside from Heyman, and Torpey offers depth in defence, which is something Australia doesn’t have right now – and the only way to truly learn about players at this level is to throw them into the deep end and see how they go.

Will Tony Gustavsson stick with the usual players?

Perhaps if the Matildas can take a multiple-goal lead into the second leg in Melbourne next Wednesday night, the opportunity might be ripe to give them a run.

Uzbekistan won’t be a problem … will they?

They shouldn’t be. And that’s not to disrespect the opposition, but there are levels to this. The Matildas are one of the world’s best teams and Uzbekistan are not. Simple. If they do not win this tie, something is seriously wrong.

That’s not to say Australia should be winning by double-digits or anything. Japan could only beat them 2-0 in last year’s qualifiers, so use that as a guide to help set your expectations. Uzbekistan is certainly a team on the rise, but they’ve not risen yet. None of their players play overseas, and most of them don’t even have Wikipedia pages – which, OK, is not a scientific measure, but should give you some indication of where they sit in the overall pecking order of the women’s game.

If the men’s Asian Cup taught us anything about Uzbek football more broadly, then the Matildas should probably expect to face a team who can pass the ball around nicely and/or defend stoutly in numbers, but aren’t yet battle-hardened to compete on the international stage.

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