The Matildas are prepared to “fight fire with fire” to nullify the Brazilian bash-up style when the sides clash again in an international friendly on the Gold Coast. That is the word from interim coach Tom Sermanni, while also insisting that Australia must have the courage to play their own game and take their opportunities better on Sunday than they did in the 3-1 loss at Suncorp Stadium on Thursday night.
Brazil committed 17 fouls, had a player sent off and played a physical brand of football that pushed the boundaries. Australia did not back down but must be ready for a similar approach from the South American powerhouses.
“I think you have to fight fire with fire,” Sermanni said. “The challenge … is that Brazil have adopted a very different style of football to what we expect Brazil to play and a different style to what most of the top teams play.
“The reality is that you need to be able to match that and to adjust to play effectively against that. You have got to balance that out by looking at where the opportunities are to hurt them. A lot of that is to play a similar kind of game to them when we get the ball forward early and get one-on-one match-ups with their defenders.”
Brazil took their chances better than the Matildas in Brisbane. They had two clear scoring opportunities inside the opening 13 minutes and went up 2-0, while Australia created their own openings, but only Caitlin Foord was able to make it count.
“It’s critical that we do better with their early forward runs and early passing,” Sermanni said. “That’s something you can show the players on video, but until you experience that it takes a bit of time to adjust.
“Hopefully having played against it the players will be a bit more familiar. Definitely you look back at the [first] game and there were a number of close opportunities that we had to get behind them, stretch them and move them around, and we were either just off with the pass or they fouled us. Hopefully we can look to do that part of the game a little bit better.”
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Sermanni grinned when asked whether he hoped the officials took a different approach in the second fixture. “That would be very nice,” he said.
“I think it is fair to say that I felt the referees were either intimidated or bullied the other night. If they had taken control early I think it would have been a very different game and potentially a different outcome. I felt our forwards got no protection and it actually reminded me of a football game from the 1980s. There was little protection in those days. Hopefully it won’t happen tomorrow night.”
The 70-year-old said there were “a few bruised bodies” but no injury concerns when the team trained on Saturday morning. Sermanni added that there was “certainly a very good chance” that he would be giving at least one Matildas squad member a debut on Sunday.
