Can the Matildas win subsequent 12 months’s Ladies’s World Cup? On the proof gathered up to now all through Tony Gustavsson’s rocky reign as coach, it appears an extended shot – and as requirements rise at a daunting charge within the girls’s sport, in all probability ever-lengthening.

However the Swede, who has formally moved full-time to Sydney as focus sharpens in the direction of the largest soccer match this nation has ever seen, reckons that something is feasible – as long as everybody, inside and out of doors the workforce’s interior circle, believes.

That Ted Lasso-esque response was a part of a long-winded reply Gustavsson gave to a direct query on Australia’s probabilities on the World Cup, which he famous was lower than a 12 months away. Or, in different phrases, simply 5 extra FIFA worldwide home windows, 32 significant days collectively, and solely 10 extra “correct” coaching periods with a full squad.

Saturday evening’s conflict at Suncorp Stadium in opposition to Canada, the reigning Olympic gold medallists, can be one other good yardstick as to how the Matildas measure up in opposition to the world’s greatest – albeit each groups are lacking a couple of vital gamers. Gustavsson volunteered his listing of absentees earlier than his press convention on Friday, noting that in Brisbane he’d be with out seven of his starters from Tokyo 2020: Ellie Carpenter, Hayley Raso, Steph Catley, Tameka Yallop, Chloe Logarzo, Caitlin Foord, and Kyah Simon.

It felt like a approach of tempering exterior expectations, which, as he later defined, are distinct from the workforce’s “perception” in what it might accomplish. What’s clear is that Gustavsson badly wants a end result, or not less than a few spectacular sufficient performances, to persuade followers and his rising variety of critics to maintain the religion in his long-term plans after profitable solely eight of his 24 video games on the helm up to now – the worst success charge for any coach since Chris Tanzey in 2000.

When requested if Gustavsson thought, 352 days out from the ultimate at Sydney’s Accor Stadium, that the Matildas had been able to hoisting that trophy, he mentioned his focus was on making certain the workforce reached its potential, that their “very aggressive” mindset valued targets scored over clear sheets, and that point would inform how far that might take them.

“If you anticipate folks to do one thing, you could base expectation on [a] reasonable measure, like a rating or high quality of a workforce,” he mentioned.

“However once you imagine, it means you possibly can obtain one thing that’s greater than anticipated of a workforce. And the one factor [that] is for sure is I’ve this job as a result of I imagine on this workforce, and I do know the method we’re into, the gamers imagine within the course of, and imagine on this workforce as properly.