by Ben Gilby (17/3/24)
Above: The Australia U20 squad with their bronze medals after defeating South Korea to finish third at the U20 Asia Cup. Photo supplied to Impetus 71 by: Football Australia.
Young Matildas head coach Leah Blayney along with players Lara Gooch and Chloe Lincoln have spoken of their huge pride as the squad clinched their best result at an U20 Asia Cup since 2006, and the first medal for any Australian national women’s football team since 2010 by finishing third at the U20 Asia Cup in Uzbekistan.
“(I’m) definitely a little bit emotional,” head coach Blayney said earlier today.
“It’s been something we’ve been working towards for a very long time, a cause we’ve been committed to. The amount of sacrifices the playing group have made to get here as well as the staff, and the support staff back home. It really is a special occasion and a big reward for us.”
The 1-0 win in the third-place play-off over South Korea was redemption for the Young Matildas’ 9-1 loss to the same opponents at the same stage of the previous tournament in 2009. Looking back at the journey since that day as a young coach, Blayney said: “I never wanted to experience that feeling again.
“From that day moving forward there was just a commitment to becoming the best version of ourselves as a group, we learned from those experiences and put them forward. I’ve been waiting now for (five) years to put that right.”
The overarching observation from this tournament has been the strong sense of togetherness that has been fostered in this Young Matildas team. Many sides would have mentally packed up after a disappointing semi-final loss and just gone through the motions in a third-place play-off. Not Blayney’s side.
“They bounced back like the resilient young women they are,” smiled the head coach. “They are a strong group. We took learnings from the Japan game into this match. Overall, our performance and our quality of play was at a very good level, and the later stages of the game, we set the task of staying disciplined and executing our game plan, and we saw that for 90 minutes.
“We knew we had to move the ball…we knew they were technically excellent. They are always a threat in behind. It was always going to be a team effort.”
“It’s just the beginning. A talented group of players on the pitch, a talented group of staff around us. The future is bright.”
Leah Blayney, Australia U20 Head Coach.
Nine of the Young Matildas’ bronze medal squad are aged 17 or younger, and among that number likes of the hugely talented regular A-League Women starters Indiana Dos Santos, Dani Galic and Alexia Apostolakis as well as Central Coast Mariners’ Peta Trimis who is finding the net for both club and country.
“They are extremely young in their careers,” Blayney recognised, “yet they are bringing so much on the pitch and off the pitch to our squad. We have a very good balance of very young players and very mature heads.”
Whilst the historic achievements in Uzbekistan are now over, and it’s time for a much-needed short rest for Blayney and her coaching team, it won’t be long before they lock in their focus on the U20 World Cup in Colombia.
“We’ll be straight back at it, preparing for this Youth World Cup in terms of looking for the kind of opponents we need to schedule as well as continuing to cast the net wide in terms of players that are available to attend this Youth World Cup. We have five months of preparation now, and it’s back to business.”
Newcastle Jets’ 18-year-old forward Lara Gooch was the scorer of the Young Matildas goal that clinched third place at the U20 Asia Cup, and she’s still searching for the words to describe what it means.
“I don’t think there is a word to describe the feeling! Just to be able to give back to the team, to everybody. I was the one there in the right place at the right time to tap it in.”
Gooch and her team-mates knew that their opponents were strongly motivated to make up for their opening Group A defeat to the Young Matildas, in a game played with up to 15cm of snow on the pitch in Tashkent.
“South Korea put up a good fight. We knew they were good competitors. We played them in the first game, it was a hard game, and to get the win was good. To play them again, we knew they would come out guns blazing. We knew they would want to take back that win…we just trusted in our game plan. Credit to the girls they worked to get that win.”
Gooch’s goal secured a first medal for an Australian national women’s football team since the senior Matildas lifted the Asia Cup in 2010. Such is the level of that achievement, it will take a while for the realisation of what she has done to sink in.
“It’s a surreal feeling. Proud is definitely the word that comes to mind. To think that it hasn’t been done for so long, and we’re the group of girls to do it. I don’t think it will really soak in til later down the line, but definitely a great feeling.”
Canberra United’s Chloe Lincoln spoke of the sheer pride in the defensive line in front of her – a group of players who have assisted her in keeping three clean sheets in the Young Matildas’ five games in the U20 Asia Cup.
“Absolutely amazing! I’m so excited, so happy for this group. We deserved this win, I think…It was definitely tough, bit of a nailbiter. It was quite close, the whole match. It was a big result for us as a defensive group to get a clean sheet, and obviously, the forwards were able to do their thing and made it count when it needed to.”
“I honestly feel so safe and so lucky to have the backline in front of me that I do. Amazing group of defenders. I feel like sometimes I might just be able to have a sip of tea and chill out at the back there! Their hard work and dedication and discipline in big moments has really showed in this tournament.
Chloe Lincoln, Australian U20 goalkeeper on her defence keeping three clean sheets in their five games at the U20 Asia Cup.
It takes a special group of players to pick themselves up after a shattering semi-final loss and refocus on producing the best possible performance in a third-place play-off. Lincoln knew exactly how they did it.
“It was the belief. Once we were able to ride the low of Japan and get through it and focus, the belief was there that we could really do well and perform against South Korea as we did in the first match, and we got it done.
“It means so, so much. The whole group can speak to whole much it means from the individual perspective to the whole team to be able to get this result, we haven’t got this result (as an Australian U20 team) since 2006. It’s been a long time coming for an Australian team and we’re just so happy that we were able to get this job done today and wear these medals back to Australia to thank all those people who have really allowed us to be in the place that we are right now.”
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