The Rise of The Matildas: Australia Women's National Team

✍️Nancy Paisey

Tom Sermanni’s international team is a well-loved and largely recognised squad with many impressive performances over the years. With their new home and away kits being released last week, let’s break down one of the most influential women’s teams in the world.

📸Matildas Australia

The Australian Women’s Soccer Association was formed in 1974 with a squad competing at the 1975 AFC Women’s Championship. The team then went on to play in the first Oceania Cup in 1983 which they then proceeded to win in 1994, 1998, and 2003.

However, throughout the 1980s, the team had no official kit to play in, so they had to use hand-me downs discarded from the men’s team.

The squad therefore resorted to sewing their own Australian Crests onto tracksuits to wear before

matches. And in 1996, the team got sponsored by popular sports brand Asics.

The Matildas’ first Olympic appearance was in 2000 due to Sydney being the host city - some of the matches even reached an attendance of over 10,000. The team ended up finishing 7th, not far behind Sweden.

In 2010, The Matildas won the AFC Asian Women’s cup in China in which they defeated DPR Korea during penalties after a score of 1-1. This squad included many well-loved Matildas including Clare Polkinghorne and Sam Kerr.

The 2011 Women’s World Cup in Germany has been considered the Matilda’s best performance ever due to the high amount of points, despite having one of the youngest teams in the whole tournament. They also left the 2020 Tokyo Olympic games in fourth place after losing to Sweden and the USA.

The 2023 Women’s world cup quarter final saw the Matildas in fourth place due to being defeated 3-1 by England.

Unfortunately, the team did not progress from the group stage in the 2024 Olympics due to a poor goal difference after defeat from the United States and Germany.

Australia hosted the 2023 Women’s World Cup along with New Zealand, so the Matildas automatically qualified and it was the first Women’s World Cup to be hosted in the Southern hemisphere. A total of nine stadiums were used, five of which were in Australia.

These five stadiums were located in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney. The tournament was said to have been a large topic of discussion between Australia’s inhabitants as women's football was increasing in popularity with viewership records being broken time and time again.

The Tillies have also recently played in the SheBelieves cup, hosted in the US. They came home with fourth place after losing to Japan, Columbia, and the US.

The SheBelieves cup was made as a marketing campaign in order to encourage young females to believe in themselves and strive towards their dreams.

This international team has many, many notable names, who have played in many different tournaments and leagues globally.

One of these players is Clare Polkinghorne who retired from international football only last year. Polkinghorne has 169 caps for Australia along with 16 goals making her the most capped women’s player to have played for Australia.

The 36 year old defender was in the international squad since 2004 which means she spent 20 years playing for the Matilda’s.

Another notable player is Sam Kerr who has unfortunately been out with an ACL injury since January of 2024. Kerr is well-known for being the Matilda’s captain and top goal scorer with 69 goals across her 128 caps.

Goalkeeper Mackenzie Arnold has been playing in the squad since 2012 and is often the starting goalkeeper for matches. She has 23 clean sheets which is the third most out of every Australia women’s goalkeeper so far.

A few young Australians have recently been called up to the squad. This includes 18 year old midfielder Daniela Galic and 19 year old midfielder Alana Murphy. They have both picked up a few caps with seemingly many more to come.