Matildas coach Tony Gustavsson has piled pressure on "favourites" England while keeping the Lionesses guessing on Sam Kerr's minutes in their blockbuster Women's World Cup semi-final.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
On Wednesday night at Stadium Australia, the Matildas will face the European champions for a spot in the final against Spain, who beat Sweden 2-1 in Auckland on Tuesday.
Australia, currently ranked No.10, beat world No.4 England 2-0 in a friendly in April and have enjoyed a stellar run against top teams.
Whether the Matildas would start as underdogs, Gustavsson replied: "In terms of favouritism and who's the favourites, I'll leave it to you guys (the media) to speculate and write about that."
But the Swede then pointed out every luxury England have over the Matildas, including suggesting their women's program had a bigger budget than Football Australia's entire national teams program.
"If you look at rankings, they're favourites. If you look at where their players play, they have starting players in top clubs and top leagues all over the world - not just 11, they have like 15, 16," he said.
"And then you compare to us: we have bench players in those teams. We have players playing in A-League, we have players playing in mid-table teams in Sweden.
"So if you look at all that and you look at resources financially, obviously they are a massive favourite going into this game.
"But if you then add the belief we have, but the one thing that we have that they don't have is the support and the belief from the fans and that itself is going to be massive tomorrow."
England counterpart Sarina Wiegman responded: "First of all, I don't think they're an underdog.
"They playing at home. The stadium will be really full.
"There's two teams that are very good, very strong, have grown into the tournament.
"So I think it's going to be very tight and it's going to be very, very competitive and we approach the game as any other game."
Kerr played 65 minutes and converted a spot-kick in the quarter-final penalty shootout against France, her second game back from injury.
"She pushed through more minutes than we hoped for to be honest," Gustavsson said.
"One of the reasons why we kept her on the bench was that we were uncertain how many minutes she had coming back from that calf injury but also the limited training minutes she had.
"The way she pushed through was fantastic and impressive both from a mental and physical aspect.
"She recovered well, she trained today so she's available. There'll be a meeting tonight again to see the best starting 11 and the best finishing 11 and whether we plan for 90 minutes or plan for extra time and those type of decisions.
"There'll be some tough decisions tonight again, but Sam is definitely available for selection."
Every player bar forward Kyah Simon (knee) trained on Tuesday morning including vice-captain Steph Catley who had her right thigh strapped, but it isn't of concern to Gustavsson.
Midfielder Katrina Gorry, who will bring up her 100th cap, also had a dressing on her right calf.
The Matildas said Australia-England rivalry would not come into it.
"Being knocked out by anyone is kind of unthinkable," goalkeeper Mackenzie Arnold responded.
"Yeah, there's probably a lot of English people that would love to see us knocked out by England but I think there's more Australians that would love to see England knocked out by us."
Australian Associated Press
