FIFA will reveal their latest rankings two days before the December 9 tournament draw, but head of national performance Luke Casserly has no doubt the Matildas will be in among the top six nations - thus side-stepping group matches against the likes of USA, Germany, hosts France and England.
Casserly believes Tuesday’s 5-0 rout of Chile in Newcastle, coupled by the Netherlands’ 1-1 draw with Switzerland in the UEFA Play-off final second leg, will confirm the Matildas’ place in the FIFA pecking order, and secure a spot in coveted Pot 1 for the draw.
As of September 28, the Matildas were ranked sixth.
“Our calculations have it that we’ll still be in sixth place for the draw which means we’ll avoid the highest rated teams at the group stage,” Casserly said.
“Of course we can still face very good teams like Brazil and the Netherlands from Pot 2.
“Our understanding was that going into the series with Chile (Australia lost the opener 3-2 in Penrith) the points gained or lost wouldn’t have affected the World Cup draw because the rankings were due to be released at a later date in December.
“But the release has been brought forward and so they did end up being significant in that respect.”
The Netherlands were hoping to knock Australia off after beating Switzerland 3-0 in the first leg.
But the reigning European champions’ failure to win the return leg scuppered their chances of leap-frogging the Matildas.
Australia put themselves in pole position by picking up valuable points in their undefeated Tournament of Nations campaign, as well as last month’s draw against England.
The rise of the team which has won the hearts of the nation hasn’t been lost on Casserly, who added: “When I first started at FFA five years ago the Matildas played China in Wollongong and Parramatta and struggled to get 1,500 people to both of those games.
“With that wave of support and positivity around women’s sport in general we are fortunate that we have a Matildas team full of star power and performing so well.
“We’ve been able to capitalise on that. We have a few players in the group now, not only Sam Kerr, who by the time we come out of the Women’s World Cup next year are a very big chance of getting themselves recognised for FIFA award nominations.”
Casserly warned, though, of managing the players correctly to ward off the possibility of burnout.
“Many of them go from the W-League, to overseas leagues to the national team, and really don’t get any breaks at all,” he said.
“It’s a question of managing their physical and mental well-being to ensure that everybody is in their peak going into France in June next year.”
Casserly is looking at up to six warm-up games going into the tournament.
“We’re close to confirming most of our activity but a lot of that is at the contract stage and we can’t elaborate too much for now,” he said.
“There will be games both here and overseas.”
