The Matildas have the perfect game tape to watch on repeat ahead of their Women’s World Cup quarter-final against France: Their own.
Australia beat Les Bleues 1-0, courtesy of a second-half Mary Fowler goal, in their final warmup game at Marvel Stadium on July 14.
Ahead of Saturday’s last-eight clash at Suncorp Stadium, the Matildas can look back on that match, along with France’s group-stage efforts, as they fine-tune their preparations.
“It was a friendly … but we learned a lot from that game and now we have images of us versing them in our formation and what we can improve on,” winger Cortnee Vine told reporters on Wednesday.
“We look inwards before we look outwards and we’ll be going back and analysing our own game against them and just picking apart what we can expose.
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“(The friendly) definitely helps. There are teams that play a lot like France, so we would have had that in our back pocket to scope them out.
“But to have the images (of) us versing them is going to help us prepare for this game.
“That’s a good thing, that we know we can win, but when we play our way, we can beat anyone.”
France’s attack, led by Kadidiatou Diani and Eugenie Le Sommer, has clicked into gear as the tournament has progressed, culminating in a 4-0 thumping of Morocco in Tuesday night’s round-of-16 clash.
Marauding left back Selma Bacha has also been a constant threat.
“France are a world-class team,” Vine said.
“They have very good individual players and they’re quite fast.
“They commit forward quite a lot. They have fullbacks that are really aggressive and really good one-on-one dribblers, but we can expose them on the counter and that’s just part of our plan.”
After a scratchy 0-0 draw with Jamaica first up, France has gradually shifted through the gears to beat Brazil, Panama and Morocco.
“They’ve made some changes to their formation and the way they played from when they played us, and in their group (games) as well,” midfielder Tameka Yallop said.
“The focus is just really the finer details and how we can play our best game against them.”
Australia hopes captain Sam Kerr can add to her cameo appearance off the bench against Denmark in the round of 16.
Kerr and fellow striker Kyah Simon were among the 12 players, all with limited game minutes to date, who hit the track at Queensland Sport and Athletic Centre on Wednesday, with their teammates in post-match recovery off site.
-AAP
