Australia boss makes bold England claim ahead of World Cup semi-final showdown
Tony Gustavsson believes England can claim to be favourites for tomorrow's World Cup semi-final but added that home support will be "massive".
Gustavsson, the only manager to defeat Sarina Wiegman in her time as England boss, has taken the Matildas to within one game of a home World Cup final. The Aussies made the last four after a dramatic penalty shootout win over France and have the European Champions next in their sights.
England will be outnumbered in the stands at Stadium Australia but they are unbeaten at the tournament so far. By contrast the Matildas were given a major scare in the group stage when they were beaten by Nigeria. When Gustavsson was asked which side are favourites, he admitted their were differences.
"You guys are better than me at speculating that," he told a press conference. "But if you look at rankings they (England) are favourites. If you look at where their players play, they have starting players in top leagues around the world.
"They don't just have an 11 they have like 15 or 16 top class players in big teams. Compared to us we have some bench players in those teams. We have players in the A-league or playing in mid-table teams in Sweden.
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"If you look at all that and the resources financially, they are massive favourites going into this game. But if you add the belief we have.
"Also the one thing we have that they don't have is the support and the belief of our fans. That is going to be massive tomorrow."
More than a third of the Matildas squad ply their trade in England for WSL clubs. Goalkeeper Mackenzie Arnold, the hero in the last round, is at West Ham, while stars like Sam Kerr and Catilin Foord regularly compete in the Champions League for Chelsea and Arsenal respectively.
Sam Kerr is expected to return to the starting line-up against England (Photo by James Whitehead)Gustavsson believes having one of the bets domestic leagues in the world is a major benefit to the England side. And he hopes to have a similar structure in Australia in the future, perhaps accelerated by the Matildas run at this tournament.
"I'm always scouting over there and seeing training and watching games," he added. "Whether it be Champions League games, league games or FA Cup games, the quality is amazing.
"The other thing is the investment, they might be a little bit further ahead than us in investing, in terms of the money and resources. The same goes for the national team.
Tony Gustavsson, Head Coach of Australia on the touchline during their World Cup quarter-final"Someone told me that the women’s programme in the women’s FA has the same budget as all national teams in our FA, that says a lot about the resources and money that they have and that is also contributing to the development of the players. That means more full-time staff, it means better training facilities, more resources, more full-time players.
"We’re at the beginning of that journey and I hope to sit here in 10 to 20 years from now and say this was a crossover moment when it comes to investment in women’s football and we can have the same resources and the same money as well."
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