Sally Shipard talks Matildas

Sally Shipard is off to the World Cup.

Matildas Star Sally Shipard discusses the Matildas pre-World Cup preparations

Sally Shipard writes:

The squads been announced and yes I have been selected. How exciting.

You can never assume or be certain of your position within the team until it’s officially announced. I along with two other local Canberra girls, both Lydia Williams and Caitlin Munoz will be off to compete at the World Cup Finals in September.

Those who were selected received the squad list via email. Those who were not selected were contacted by Tommy(Sermanni).

What a tough gig, I’m glad I’m a player and not the coach.

It must have been terribly hard to cut the squad down.

We head up to Coffs Harbour today. We have our final Olympic Qualifying match against Chinese Taipei on Sunday.

Now this may confuse some but we have to play the game even though we didn’t qualify for the 2008 Olympic Games.

We will be using the game to prepare for the World Cup.
On Sunday we fly out to China for two games against the Chinese National team, arriving back in Australia on the 21st of August. This trip is short but the games against China will provide us with some competitive matches before our first game at the World Cup on the 12th of September.

We will be flying back to China on the 5th of September, after our final camp in Sydney which begins on the 1st of September.

I won’t be paying a visit to university any time soon. I will be able to access lecture notes via the internet and will complete several exams upon my return. This is the situation for most of the girls at university, I’m assuming a few textbooks and lap-tops will be coming along for the ‘ride’.

I will be keeping you guys posted while we are over in China over the next couple of weeks. Will chat more about the actual World Cup in my next blog. Stay tuned

Cheers Sal.