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Tonight’s the night.
The biggest match in Australian football history: the Matildas against England for the right to face Spain in the World Cup final.
Australia have reached the semi-finals for the first time in history, while England lost in the semi-final stage at the last two Women’s World Cups.
But the Matildas have recent history against England, ending a 30-game unbeaten run for the Lionesses with an impressive 2-0 win in a friendly in April.
The match begins at 8pm AEST at Stadium Australia in Sydney.
Follow all the build-up to the action right here, before our a live blog kicks off at 8pm!
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‘THEY’RE THE FAVOURITES’ … BUT AUSSIES HAVE ‘MASSIVE’ ADVANTAGE
England are the European champions, the world’s fourth-ranked team – six higher than the Matildas – and even with a number of their finest players missing the tournament through injury they come into the match as strong favourites.
And there’s one staggering statistic that shows the gap between the teams.
Tony Gustavsson said yesterday: “I think someone told me that the women’s program in the English Football Association has the same budget as all national teams in our Football Association (combined).”
But Gustavsson isn’t afraid of being the underdogs.
“If you look at rankings, they’re the favourites,” he said.
“If you look at where their players play, they have starters playing in top clubs in top leagues all over the world. Not just the starting 11 – they have 15 or 16.
“And you compare that to us where we have bench players in those teams, we have players in the A-League and we have players playing in mid-table teams in Sweden, so if you look at all that and you look at resources financially, then they are a massive favourite going into this game.”
But there’s two key reasons the coach believes his Matildas side is perfectly positioned to deliver another upset.
He added: “But if you then add the belief we have and the one thing they don’t have, which is the support and the belief from the fans.
“That in itself is going to be massive tomorrow.”
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As for England, they’re not buying into the favouritism tag despite being the highest-ranked team left in the tournament (fourth, with Spain sixth and Australia tenth).
“I don’t think Australia are the underdog, they are playing at home and the stadium will be very full,” coach Sarina Wiegman said.
“There’s two teams that are very strong and have grown into the tournament, it’s going to be very tight and competitive.
“We approach the game as any other game, we prepare how we want to play and analyse our opponent really well so we can hopefully expose some weaknesses.”
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In yesterday’s pre-match press conference, Tony Gustavsson said the match would be a fascinating tactical battle.
He openly mused whether the Lionesses would stick to their possession style or change their approach to try and nullify Australia’s extreme danger on the counter-attack.
“When we played them last time we got a good transition game going, but I know that England learned a lot from that game,” Gustavsson said.
“If you saw England playing Nigeria – that is also a very good transition team – England played much more direct than what they normally do so I think they’ve evolved and adjusted their game plan a bit so they’re not just possession based, especially if they choose to play with a back three and two nines that [are] willing to run in behind.
“It will be an interesting tactical game in that sense, is England going to stay true to their possession game? Or are they going to take away our transition game by playing a different style of football than they normally do?”
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And he also declared the Matildas had success in the friendly victory this year by “target[ting] specifically” two of England’s players – and would do so again.
He continued: “We’re prepped for both systems, that they can play 4-2-3-1 and 3-5-2. We’ve also played three different systems in this World Cup so we might be flexible and do something different as well.
“There are some players that, no matter what system they play, they have the very same tendencies.
“And when we played them last time we managed to target specifically two of those players, and we benefited from that tactically.
“So we looked into those nuances and those individual behaviours a little bit more now, instead of the system, and hope that we can target that tomorrow as well.”
The Matildas were missing Caitlin Foord, Steph Catley and Alanna Kennedy for that 2-0 win, but Hayley Raso gave England fullback Jess Carter a torrid time on the flank – a player that Gustavsson could have been referring to.
Carter, a Chelsea player, has played every minute in four of England’s five games, but was left out of their 1-0 group-stage win over Denmark.
KERR’S RIDICULOUS FORM AGAINST ENGLAND RIVAL
If there’s one match-up that Australian fans will be looking forward to, it’s Sam Kerr against England’s superstar goalkeeper Mary Earps.
That’s not just because Kerr is Australia’s all-time top scorer at the international level and watching her battle elite keepers is a joy to behold.
It goes beyond that.
Kerr has a particularly brilliant record against Earps, the world’s best keeper (according to FIFA anyway, as she picked up the Best Women’s Goalkeeper 2022 award in February)
Earps currently plays for Manchester United in the Women’s Super League, where Kerr laces up her boots for Chelsea.
The pair have done battle eight times – Australia’s 2-0 win over the Lionesses in a friendly this year, as well as seven club matches.
Kerr has scored nine goals in those eight games – including the winner in the most recent FA Cup final, where Chelsea made it three in a row.
The Aussie has claimed seven straight wins after a draw in their first meeting.
Earps has picked up three clean sheets in five games this tournament – Haiti and Denmark in the group stage, and Nigeria in their first knockout game.
But she’ll be having nightmares about the Aussie skipper who just can’t stop scoring against her.
FIFA WWC Semi-final 2
Australia vs England
Where: Stadium Australia, Sydney
When: 8pm AEST
MATCH CENTRE: Teams, live stats, and more!
