BY Victor Akhidenor
Australia goalkeeper, Melissa Barbieri, has revealed that the Matildas played against men prior to the FIFA Women’s World Cup because of the Super Falcons of Nigeria.
Falcon’s skilful and unpredictable style of play has made them one of the surprises of Canada 2015 thus far, with an incredible 3-3 comeback draw against Sweden.
And Barbieri, who lost 3-1 with Australia against the USA, is hopeful those bruising games the team had against male teenage teams while in camp have prepared them to overcome the entertaining Nigerians.
“It is very difficult to predict but we did a lot of training in the beginning leading up to the World Cup with a lot of boys’ teams and the instruction was to play off the cuff,” Barbieri said.
“We sort of had that in our mindset that African nations are very, very good footballers but do play their own style and brand that we rarely get to see and usually when we get to see them it is in a World Cup. So, hopefully, we’ve done enough practice for those sorts of things with the boys back home.”
The Falcon’s strong finish put the rest of the group on notice with Barbieri a keen admirer of their style of play.
“That should be how we teach our kids how to play, just play whatever you see, go for it, one v ones and showing us your brilliance,” she said.
Australia will play Nigeria on June 12 at the Winnipeg Stadium in their second Group D game.
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