Sermanni: "Effort and attitude were so much better"
CommBank Matildas Interim Head Coach Tom Sermanni said that he was proud of the effort and attitude of his team, despite falling short against world no.1 USA on Monday morning (AEDT).
He explained that there were plenty of lessons to take from the 2-1 defeat after bouncing back from the game against Japan.
“Effort and attitude were so much better in this game, especially after the start we had,” he said, referring to the concession of a goal in the first minute.
“From the perspective of the team digging in and sticking in there, I was really pleased about that part of our performance and that effort.
“When we consider that we made lots of changes, brought on some players that haven’t been capped so far, and mixed the squad up a bit, I think it will be a big confidence booster.”
Alana Murphy and Laini Freier became CommBank Matildas #235 and #236 respectively during the game, with Sermanni explaining that introducing them in a game against the world's best in front of a large, parochial crowd was a great way to accelerate their development as players.
“We need to introduce players into this environment,” he said.
“To come straight from the A-League Women, to playing the US in an arena like this, it can be quite daunting. So it’s good to get those players on the field and to give them a taste of international football.
“The key to running any national team is that you have to play for the present and get a result in the present, but be planning for the future whilst you’re doing that. It becomes a really important balance to continue to bring young players in and to let them see what the environment is. Let them see what the level of international football is.
“It’s something that over the next couple of years, we really need to focus on, and we really need to start producing another generation of players.”
Despite the positives of the performance, Sermanni pinpointed certain areas to improve that would help secure the result in the future.
“We do need to keep the ball better. I think our movement needs to be a bit slicker. Our rhythm needs to be better,” he said.
“We also need to identify threats and be a little bit more aggressive with our forward running. Our ability to see forward passes. That’s something that we need to do much better.”
Sermanni praised the performance of goalkeeper Teagan Micah, who pulled off a number of fantastic saves, particularly in the second half. However, he stopped short of identifying who the starting goalkeeper would be against Colombia.
“The situation at the moment is that Teagan has been playing week in, week out in the WSL and performing really well, whereas Mackenzie [Arnold] is barely back in pre-season training,” he said.
“Particularly for a goalkeeper, they need to get matches under their belt before they come in at this level.
“It’s too premature to know what we’re doing against Colombia. We need to get in the dressing room, see how everyone is, and then tonight we’ll start to look ahead at what we’re going to do.”
He did hint that the third match of the SheBelieves Cup would see another rotated team, with different players given opportunities to start.
“In this tournament, it was part of our aim to make sure we gave players game time,” he said.
“That’s going to be a definite in the Colombia game. What the balance of that is, I really don’t know at this stage.
“The other thing that we’ve got to take into account is we’ve got some of our players who have played a lot of minutes in their club football and are going back to Europe straight into games, so we’ve got to make sure that those players go back as healthy as possible.”
CommBank Matildas v Colombia
Date: Wednesday, 26 February 2025 (local) / Thursday, 27 February (AEDT)
Kick-off: 4.37 pm PST (local) / 11.37 am (AEDT)
Venue: Snapdragon Stadium, San Diego (CA)
Broadcast: Paramount+
Tickets: ussoccer.com/shebelieves/cup
