Matildas ready to take on USA

Canberra's Lydia Williams stars in US defeat.

Australian Coach Tom Sermanni was in good spirits ahead of the Matildas second game against the USA tomorrow in Birmingham, Alabama.


Despite an under prepared Matildas side the team were narrowly defeated 3-2 in the final minute in Monday's first international.

"We should have most of the team back on deck for selection this weekend, so touch wood we've got another session tomorrow, we'll be okay." said Sermanni

"We're still a bit behind in comparison to the US at this stage. We're still a bit behind in practice, they've had three major tournaments this year, and that showed the other night. We did well to keep in touch and get back into the game.

Canberran stars
"We said when we were going on this trip that we'd play the goalkeepers game about, Lydia (Williams) has really kicked on in the last six or seven months and we really need to give her opportunities in these kind of games, to test her out, and she had an exceptionally good game.

Star striker Lisa De Vanna is not on this trip she "has a Sweden contract so we are looking at potentially getting her back for the Asia Cup and we were never going to bring her back for this trip." added Sermanni.

"Surin Kuralya and also Leah Blayney joined us on Monday. They are two players that have been playing in College over here, so when we came over it's an ideal opportunity to bring them back in to the system and have a look at them again and see where they are at.

"Any team that loses two strikers is going to be a bit short upfront, which is one of the reasons why we brought Kyah (Simon)into the squad. Not only is she starting to improve, but she also has the physical qualities to enable her to play and cope against the US. We started her and considering it was her first major international she did really well.

Injury update for tomorrow's game:
"Joey Peters is unlikely to be considered, she still has a niggling knee injury, Di Alagich will probably be in for selection and Caitlin (Munoz) we'll see how she goes tomorrow at training.

Asian Cup Preparations.

On the forthcoming Asia Cup Sermanni said, "We're probably a bit underdone. We've got these two games and then the two game against Canada. We're not in the same zone as we were for the World Cup. We'll have decent preparation (for the Asia Cup). We'll come into the Canada game around the 18th May, and have four or five games before we play our first game.

In relation to the kind of preparation that we normally get, that's not to bad."

And on Heather Garriock and her dash for the Danish Cup Final?

"Heather got injured in Monday's game, so we took her off. She didn't make the trip back to Denmark, but her team won 4-0 in the Cup Final without her. She'll play tomorrow. It takes a lot for Heather to miss a game."