Australia head coach Tony Gustavsson gave England the edge over Australia in terms of overall women’s football development in his remarks to the media the day before the Matildas’ semifinal match against England.
Both Gustavsson and goalkeeper Mackenzie Arnold were asked repeatedly about Australia and England being a rivalry, but neither particularly agreed with that assessment given that Australia and England haven’t actually matched up all that frequently in important tournament games. England and Australia have never met in a World Cup knockout game before, although Australia did knock out Team GB from the quarterfinals of the Tokyo Olympics.
“Obviously there’s a massive rivalry between Australia and England with sports all over the place,” said Arnold. “And that’s obviously going to be no different tomorrow, but at the same time, we’ve got a lot of rivalries in football with Brazil, USA, New Zealand. So I think tomorrow is going to be another just another game and like Tony said, we’re trying to focus on one game at a time and really focus on ourselves and our own game plan rather than getting caught up in a rivalry.”
However, Gustavsson also pointed out the multitude of ways that he thought England…
