Like any metric Fifa rankings are a crude measure best taken with a sack of salt. A fleeting look at the women’s rankings tells you sixth v 12th should be, if not a fait accompli, then at the least a pretty sure thing.
How then to interpret the relative strength of the test posed by Norway on Saturday, and the importance of this game for Australian football?
Ranked below a North Korean side that failed to even qualify, on paper Norway are weaker than the Brazilian side that Australia beat, and stronger than the Italian team the Matildas lost to.
If rankings-fixation feels a slightly esoteric discussion than consider the psychological significance of this match-up. Having fought in recent years to earn the international respect to be considered a genuine title contender, Australia’s players have repeatedly been at pains to stress their desire to shed the underdog tag. And yet they continue to perform best when they cleave to it.
Like countless other Australian teams, spectacular recent results such as the 2017 Tournament of Nations win over the United States – still the world No 1 side’s most recent loss on home soil – show the Matildas’ ability to punch above their weight. It’s rare that the team comes up short performance wise against the top sides (see: Brazil) but equally worrisome that they tend to fall short against teams nominally down the pecking order (see: Italy).
The temptation in tournament football is always to keep one eye upon the pathway ahead. With a potential quarter-final showdown with England, and a possible semi-final clash with either of the two tournament favourites France or the USA, those are exactly the kind of fixtures that a Matildas side bristling to prove themselves would relish.
Which is why this Norway fixture is so tricky. With talk of “going one better” after three consecutive quarter-finals appearances, the players cannot afford to have one eye on anything other than the match in Nice.
It a circumstance not helped by the heightened pressure of results-obsession – put simply, lose to Norway and the entire Ante Milicic experiment will be recorded by history, stripped clean of contextual nuance, as a failure.
The psychology surrounding the Scandinavians is powerful – the critics all told them their World Cup was over when the world’s best player, Ballon d’Or winner Ada Hegerberg, walked out on the squad.
But already we’ve seen Guro Reiten and Caroline Graham Hansen – believed to be fit and ready to play in Nice – blossom in her absence. Like Italy returning to the top stage after a 20-year-absence, this Norwegian side have everything to gain and very little at risk.
For Australia the psychology is more challenging. A good but not a great side, Norway have all the Matildas’ specific pressure points well-covered – and yet the onus remains on the world’s No 6 side to go out and proactively dispatch their seemingly lesser rivals.
After his side’s 3-0 win over Nigeria, coach Martin Sjögren made no bones about forecasting that his side would fundamentally alter their approach against a “superior” opponent, in hosts France.
“Our style will be totally different against France,” Sjögren said. “We were on top of the match all the time [here] but against France it will be a different match, they are much more attacking than we are. We’re going to go a bit deeper, we’ll play as more of a group. We will try to make counter-attacks against France.”
With the prospect of extra-time and even penalties it’s precisely the kind of approach the Norwegians could roll out against Australia, and with the blueprint from Italy as to how to do it successfully, Milicic and his staff will need to demonstrate that they’ve corrected the susceptibilities inside their team.
With a full 23 players available – for the first time all tournament – such has been the Jekyll and Hyde nature of the Matildas’ performances thus far there’s a sense that we’ve not yet seen the best this squad has to offer.
For all his emphasis on the importance of Elise Kellond-Knight in the heart of his midfield, we’re yet to see Milicic employ the technical No 6 in her preferred role. Should the 2015 World Cup All-Star team nominee start in the screening role it would trigger a domino effect, with Emily van Egmond possibly shifting further forward, leaving the impressive Chloe Logarzo and Tameka Yallop both fighting for one position.
This internal competition – something sorely missing during recent matches where Australia boasted only one specialised fully-fit centre back – could be the key to overturning adverse psychological conditions surrounding this match.
Win here though and the conditions in which the Matildas most thrive will present themselves. But first they have to get through Norway in Nice.
