Tony Gustavsson’s reign as head coach of the Matildas is over, with Football Australia confirming on Thursday afternoon that it had mutually agreed to part ways with the coach following the conclusion of his contract.
Gustavsson, 50, was appointed to Matildas role in September 2020 on a deal that took him through the Paris Olympics, a campaign that ended on Wednesday after a 2-1 defeat to the United States, combined with Canada‘s win over Colombia, eliminated the side in the group stages.
Conceding 10 goals across their three games — ensuring their goal difference would trail Brazil in the race to progress as one of the two best third-placed finishers — it was the Matildas’ earliest exit from an Olympics since 2000 and their first group stage elimination at a major tournament since 2003.
Placed at the helm of a Golden Generation of talent, the Swede guided Australia to a first Olympics semifinal at the 2021 iteration in Tokyo, falling to the USWNT in the bronze medal game.
He was then in the dugout as the Matildas reached a first World Cup semifinal, with the explosion in goodwill and affection for the side as the tournament was staged Down Under seeing their 3-1 loss to England in that game watched by the largest audience in Australian television history.
These historic results, however, were sandwiched around a 2022 Asian Cup campaign that saw Australia eliminated in the quarterfinals by South Korea — a result that would have forced them to qualify for the World Cup via AFC playoffs had they not already secured a place as hosts — and this week’s poor Paris Olympics.
Off the pitch, Gustavsson also played a significant role in Football Australia’s efforts to close bring up an alarming dearth of depth revealed by its 2021 Performance Gap Report, with 23 players debuting across his tenure — an increase of 15 on the previous cycle — amidst the largest infusion of new talent into the squad in over a decade.
Mary Fowler and Kyra Cooney-Cross both became regular starters amidst his tenure, while the likes of Clare Wheeler and Charlotte Grant became a regular part of squads.
However, this talent infusion sat in concert with the coach increasingly coming in for criticism during his tenure for a lack of rotations in major competitive fixtures, with only 14 members of his squad playing more than 30 minutes across their seven games at the World Cup despite a pre-tournament mantra of it needing “23 for 23.”
More to come…