Catley in doubt for Matildas’ Olympic opener with mystery ‘lower leg’ injury
By Vince Rugari
It is almost 12 months to the day since Australia and the rest of the world learnt that Sam Kerr had injured her calf less than two hours before she was due to lead the Matildas in their Women’s World Cup opener against Ireland.
History is repeating. Sort of.
Matildas captain Steph Catley with coach Tony Gustavsson.Credit: Getty
The circumstances are a bit different – at least we know, this time, that Steph Catley is injured – but they’re in roughly the same spot: on the eve of a major tournament with their captain in doubt, and coach Tony Gustavsson refusing to give outsiders any clarity about what is going on.
The Matildas will play their final warm-up match on Sunday (5am AEST) before Paris 2024 with a friendly against Canada, the reigning Olympic champions, in Marbella, Spain.
Catley, who deputised brilliantly for Kerr during the World Cup and since her ACL injury, will not be involved. It was revealed on Wednesday that she had suffered a “lower leg injury” before joining Australia’s pre-Olympics training camp, rendering her unavailable for the clash with Canada.
But Gustavsson won’t say anything else about the specific nature of the injury, the severity of it, or how it happened.
Steph Catley celebrates after scoring the first goal for Australia at the World Cup against Ireland.Credit: Getty
“I wish I could,” he said.
“But I want to respect Steph, the club [Arsenal] and the environment outside of here. When something happens outside of our environment, it’s not our responsibility to communicate it. The only thing I can say is that she’s here now, she has a lower leg injury, and we’re doing everything to get her back.”
Gustavsson said it was too soon to know if Catley will be fit for Australia’s opening fixture against Germany on July 25 but that everyone within Camp Matilda was doing everything possible to give her a chance of being involved.
Beyond that, Gustavsson has some breathing room.
A last-minute change to Olympic regulations means that competing teams can now replace someone from their 18-player squads with one of their four alternate players for injury, illness or mental health reasons, up to six hours before kick-off – and, crucially, that the player who dropped out of the squad can come back in once they’re medically cleared. It effectively increases the size of squads to 22, just with a little bit more paperwork involved, and means Catley’s situation is not as serious as it otherwise would have been.
Kaitlyn Torpey, who was also ruled out of the Canada match at the same time as Catley after also bringing a “lower leg injury” into camp, may end up seeing some minutes against Germany after making good progress on the training pitch, Gustavsson said. He also tried to temper expectations, saying players would be going into the friendly feeling tired due to the intensity of their preparations.
“But that was the plan,” he said. “You’re going to see a lot of rotation, a lot of subs … we need to approach this game as if it is the Olympics.”