Monday, June 13, 2011

Matildas ready for the World Cup

Less than two weeks to go to the FIFA Women's World Cup Germany 2011 (what a mouthful). This week's posts are given over to profiling some of the teams and players.
Question of the tournament: will Germany get their three-in-a-row?

A is for apple and ... Australia.
The Aussie team is known as the Matildas, taken from a well-known song Waltzing Matilda. (The boys team, if you're wondering, are the Socceroos) Ranked No 11 in the world, the team feels they're in with a pretty good chance of taking home some silver. Something to do with the elixer of youth if they do, a report in The Australian said the team "has an average age of 21.6 and nearly half the squad is 20 or under." This includes Caitlin Foorde, all of 16 years and 7 months young. Captain Melissa Barbieri (31) is looking forward to not being the underdog, saying in the same article: "I love the youth factor. It is an amazing feeling knowing they are so enthusiastic and unpredictable and that Brazil is going to have to worry about us for a change." In another interview, Barbieri and coach Tom Sermanni admits this is more down to injury and players committed to international clubs but is still hopeful it will all work out.

Their record, as you might have guessed from the above, doesn't include a win yet.
1991 Didn't qualify
1995 Round 1
1999 Round 1
2003 Round 1
2007 Quarter- finals
2011 Group D

This year's team also includes two Indigenous Australians, Kyah Simon and Lydia Williams. This clip is from a documentary being made about their particular journey to the World Cup.



The Matildas opening game is on July 29th against Brazil with games against Norway and Equatorial Guinea to follow.

Who're you supporting? (if you are!)
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3 comments

Emmet Ryan said...

That's a horrible draw for the Aussies because Brazil and Norway are two of the traditional powers of the women's game.

Katarzyna said...

Go The Matilda's!

niamh said...

@ Emmet - yup! They're confident though, and I suppose you never know in sport

@Katarzyna - thought you'd like this post:)A few early telly mornings ahead I'd say

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