Ante Milicic offered a valuable insight into where his players are at just under two weeks out from the World Cup when he and his coaching staff agreed to mic up during an Australian training session over the weekend. The messages from the coaches to the players were clear and simple, delivered in short sentences, their points precise. Positioning, angles, passing, one-touch-two-touch and maintaining a high level of intensity are all very much in their minds as the tournament in France creeps closer.
The Matildas have been ensconced in their Antalya training camp for a week now. For Milicic and his coaches, the focus has been on fine-tuning the squad’s technical and tactical needs, while getting the players up to speed with requirements for this weekend’s warm-up game against reigning European champions the Netherlands.
Speaking on the first day of overseeing a full-squad training session, Ivan Jolic emphasised the preparatory nature of the Netherlands game and its build up. “This is very much a conditioning type of week here,” Milicic’s assistant said. “We’ll definitely carry some fatigue into the Dutch game. Notwithstanding, we’d love to perform well in the game, but that’s not the ultimate goal, but more about the preparation and providing a platform to perform at the World Cup.”
Reflecting on the first week of camp, Milicic said his players have “set high standards from the start”. He added: “All coming in at different stages, [the training camp has been a] little bit staggered due to their commitments with their club focus. But once they’ve come in here we’ve had the work in the first few days, having an individualised programme for the majority of them, and now everyone’s up to speed we’ve got them all training together.”
The weeks leading into their Turkish training camp differ markedly to the Matildas’ last tournament hit-out at February’s Cup of Nations. Then, Milicic’s squad was largely drawn from the W-League; the cohesion that gave the playing group – training and playing together and against each other each week – was clear and formed a strong base from which to build.
In the three months since, the Matildas’ preparations have become much more individualised. Some players have taken the opportunity to take a break from the relentlessness of week-in-week out football before the pressure cooker of a World Cup, while others opted to return to their US clubs in the NWSL. When the squad arrived in Turkey, they came in two distinct groups: the first coming off the back of a full European football season or having not played since the conclusion of the W-League; the second from the opening rounds of the NWSL. The Netherlands, by contrast, are taking a largely homogenous squad to the World Cup, with their players all plying their trade in Europe.
At this stage of the international competition cycle, the fragmented nature of professional women’s football outside Europe offers something of an advantage. Working closely with the national team staff, players have some ability to manage their playing loads as they see fit, even if the toll of the increasing mental and physical demands of a professionalising game is an urgent topic in the development of women’s football. How these disjunctures are managed could be key to the Matildas’ performances in France.
Not all the Matildas in the NWSL have been playing week-in, week-out – Lydia Williams and Hayley Raso have both spent some time on the bench – but by and large they’ve arrived in the Mediterranean razor sharp and ready to go: Caitlin Foord has been amongst the goals for the Portland Thorns; Sam Kerr, as is her wont, departed the States as the NWSL’s leading goalscorer and with a player of the round award stowed in her hand luggage for good measure.
Success for any team in France is dependent on attention to detail. Improvements are now incremental, an eking of another percentage of difference here or there, wherever it can be gleaned. So much of the hard work is done now and the weeks of individual work have finally given way to the final period of precise preparation. And with the World Cup only days away the Matildas are just one-touch-two-touches away from their opener against Italy in Valenciennes.
