What was learnt from Matildas’ World Cup campaign, and what comes next?

Sometimes it takes a respected outsider to convey what others can already see. “Now Australia, they have to take the next step,” said England coach Sarina Wiegman. “How can Australia now grow the game?”

As perhaps the greatest manager women’s football has seen, and one who has witnessed first-hand change engineered by success at major tournaments, the Lionesses boss is well-placed to ask the question.

She was not alone. After Wiegman’s side ended the Matildas’ World Cup run - a run which, by the end, built a television reach of almost half the country - Sam Kerr also stated the obvious. “It’s hard to talk about now,” she said. “But hopefully that this is the start of something new.”

Kerr was referencing the need for funding to grow the local game, but she could have just as easily been referencing what this tournament has meant for her team. So, what was learned throughout the campaign, and what comes next?

The Matildas have become, if they were not already, Australia’s most popular national team. There are a few factors contributing to this but on-field exploits are among the most significant. On the evidence of what we have seen over the past month, such performances feel destined to continue. That it is only a matter of time before the Matildas win a World Cup.

When and how are, at this point, the unanswered questions. And both depend on which players are where and at what point of their careers. For the veterans, this is both the start and end of something. They stood on the shoulders of those who came before and have reached new heights for those who will come after.

This team may, within the next four-year cycle, find itself in transition, with a number of veterans due to retire at some point. Among them is 31-year-old midfield gun Katrina Gorry, who said after her 100th cap on Wednesday that the veterans were probably hurting the most because “we don’t really have another World Cup in us”.

Likewise, Clare Polkinghorne, 34, was in tears after the 3-1 loss, while the team’s longest-serving player Lydia Williams, 35, will unlikely be around that long and Aivi Luik, 38, has already retired once.

What we have learned throughout the tournament is that a new generation that’s just as exciting is on the rise. Peripheral football viewers in Australia will have seen some of them, such as 20-year-old forward Mary Fowler, 21-year-old Kyra Cooney-Cross and 24-year-old Clare Hunt.

It feels inevitable that Hunt, a revelation in the centre of the defence, will soon move from the Western Sydney Wanderers to a big European club. Cortnee Vine can expect offers and Cooney-Cross is already the subject of international attention.

But there are others, too, who barely made it off the bench. Alex Chidiac is only 24 and already something of a cult fan figure because of her aggressive attacking style, while 21-year-old Charli Grant is an adept full-back with a big future.

These two players in particular represent what might have been had Tony Gustavsson been more willing to rotate his squad. In that sense, we have learned that the coach has spent the past two-and-a-half years building squad depth only to avoid using it when it is most needed.

If some of those unused players are given proper game time against Sweden on Saturday night, we may have more of a sense of whether fresh legs may have made a difference to the Matildas’ aim of making a World Cup final. At the very least, it might offer a glimpse into the future, maybe even a 2027 World Cup.

“We’ve got lots of young players on our team,” Kerr said on Friday. “You look at the young ones [like] Mary and Ellie, and you think ‘oh God, we’re in a really good place here’. And then you look at the other end and you think ‘oh, we could lose a few’.

“But there’s probably 10 or 12 players out there we’ve never heard of who will be at the next World Cup, and that’s really exciting. And I think there’s a couple of players at this World Cup who probably won’t be in the Matildas team anymore - they would’ve retired.

“But you never know. This is why this tournament is so special: because it only happens every four years and the teams are forever changing, and women’s football is changing quicker than people could have ever imagined.

“Most of us will still be here if we have the opportunity to be. We have to play at our clubs, we have to play well, stay injury-free. There might be a few more babies maybe, I don’t know - it’s four years, it’s a long time. But I hope the core group is together.”

The other unknown centres around whether Gustavsson will see out his contract, which runs until the end of the Olympics. But the former United States assistant is reportedly in the frame for the vacant US head coaching job and Jill Ellis, under whom he worked throughout America’s triumphant 2015 and 2019 World Cup campaigns, said the 50-year-old “should definitely be a strong candidate”.

On Friday, Gustavsson himself straight-batted a question about speculation he might leave the Matildas to replace Vlatko Andonovski, who resigned on Thursday after an underwhelming campaign.

“It’s funny how this game works, right? A couple weeks ago it was speculation of whether I was going to get sacked,” he said. “You’re never better than your last game - losing tomorrow I’m probably shit again. It’s such hard work. One game at a time.

“I love working with this team. We’ve been on a journey together and I said it from day one: it’s such a privilege to be part of this team and this journey, and be a small part of something much bigger than 90 minutes of football. The legacy that these players wanted to leave here, and to be able to do so as well and experience the game tomorrow with them is something I’m looking forward to.”

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