Wake-up call in double drubbing

THE Matildas could face World Cup humiliation on home soil in 2023 unless lessons are learnt from successive thrashings against Germany and the Netherlands, according to Australian great Joey Peters.

Spanked 5-2 by the Germans last Saturday night in Wiesbaden, the Matildas stooped to a further low on Wednesday morning when they suffered a humiliating 5-0 loss to the Dutch in Nijmegen.

It was their heaviest defeat since losing by the same scoreline to China in 2008.

With the Olympics starting in July, the pressure is already on new Matildas coach Tony Gustavsson after just two games in charge.

But Peters, who made 110 appearances for Australia between 1996 and 2009, said the real worry was the 2023 World Cup being co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand.

“Everyone’s going to come here ... and we’ve got to get to the quarter-finals through European teams,” the 2009 Australian Women’s Footballer of the Year said. “We’ve got to realistically look at these other countries that have a huge culture of football ... they’re miles ahead of us.”

The games against the European powerhouses were the Matildas’ first since March last year, their first under Gustavsson and played with a limited preparation using only overseas-based players.

But Peters said it was the wake-up call the Matildas, and Australian women’s football as a whole, needed.

“We knew Europe was going way beyond us and it just shows how far we need to catch up now,” she said.

Despite the early struggles, Peters was confident Gustavsson was the right coach to bring the Matildas forward tactically.

“I’m hoping this was really deliberate from Tony in saying ‘you girls wants to win an Olympic medal, you girls want to win a home World Cup, well let’s have a look here how good you really are,” she said.

“We have a good chance with him at the helm to either learn quickly or we can sulk. He’s not the type of guy to let them sulk.”