{"id":7208,"date":"2023-04-12T07:36:37","date_gmt":"2023-04-12T07:36:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/soccer-australia-must-stay-humble\/"},"modified":"2023-04-12T07:41:37","modified_gmt":"2023-04-12T07:41:37","slug":"soccer-australia-must-stay-humble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/soccer-australia-must-stay-humble\/","title":{"rendered":"Soccer-Australia must stay humble after England upset: coach"},"content":{"rendered":"

MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Australia coach Tony Gustavsson has praised his players for using “head and heart” to snap England’s 30-match unbeaten streak but cautioned them to remain humble in the leadup to the Women’s World Cup on home soil.<\/p>\n

Led by a goal and an assist by captain Sam Kerr, the injury-hit Matildas upset European champions England 2-0 in a friendly in London on Tuesday, drawing rave reviews in Australia’s newspapers.<\/p>\n

“We had 10 injuries going into this game and there could be a lot of excuses not to perform. But that’s not what this team is about,” Gustavsson told reporters.<\/p>\n

“The heart that lives in this team – but then combining that heart with head, meaning the discipline and the tactical execution … That combination between head and heart is what makes me really proud.”<\/p>\n

Australia bounced back from a shock 1-0 loss to Scotland on Friday, with Kerr rested for the team’s first defeat in eight games.<\/p>\n

Australia defended well against England and the clean sheet was the result of a “very clear plan”.<\/p>\n

“They have a lot of weapons,” said Swede Gustavsson of the hosts.<\/p>\n

“If you don\u2019t defend as a team, you get exposed, like we did a couple of times in the middle of the second half.<\/p>\n

“It wasn\u2019t perfect, but it was close enough.”<\/p>\n

Australian media said home fans could now dare to dream of winning the World Cup but Kerr was emphatic that the England result should be taken with a “grain of salt”.<\/p>\n

Gustavsson agreed with his captain.<\/p>\n

“We need to stay very, very humble,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes you\u2019re not as bad as people say you are when you lose, but you\u2019re not as good as people say you are when you win, either.<\/p>\n

“We know on any given day, we might not have the best team, but we can beat the best teams.”<\/p>\n

\n

(Reporting by Ian Ransom in Melbourne; Editing by Peter Rutherford)<\/p>\n

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MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Australia coach Tony Gustavsson has praised his players for using “head and heart” to snap England’s 30-match unbeaten streak but cautioned them to remain humble in the leadup to the Women’s World Cup on home soil. Led by a goal and an assist by captain Sam Kerr, the injury-hit Matildas upset European […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":7209,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1219],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportSportsNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3B07V-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7208"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7210,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7208\/revisions\/7210"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}