It all depended on the first 15 minutes. Ellie Carpenter had said so. So had Steph Catley. Joe Montemurro declared it twice. It would be the settling period. When either Australia or Japan would to set the tone. Tone matters in an Asian Cup final. Like an off-key band member, it’s tough to regain once lost.
Well, the Matildas spent those opening 900 seconds delivering the best football they have played all tournament. On almost any other occasion, against almost any other opponent, that might have produced the desired effect.
The only problem was the one already known by all the 74,397 spectators at Stadium Australia. The 74,397 who had come to watch the latest chapter in one of Australian football’s most storied rivalries, hoping and praying this would not end the way both the 2014 and 2018 Asian Cup finals ended: in another 1-0 defeat to leave this team 16 years and counting without a trophy in their hands.
But this was the established problem in the lead-up to the most important match many of this Matildas generation will contest in their international careers: that Japan produce their music in a post-analogue era. Their guitars and saxophones tune themselves. AI probably does it; they are that far into the future.
So when Japan go out to set the tone, they are, as their coach Nils Nielsen had observed the previous day, not individuals. Their names are often forgotten; when watching their football, the eye can see only the collective.
That was the trick of the eye throughout those opening 15 minutes, when the focus was drawn to how well each Matildas player was performing as an individual. How Sam Kerr almost scored in the second minute, and how Caitlin Foord could have scored in the 11th – the unfortunate motif of the Arsenal forward’s match. How Kaitlyn Torpey had her mongrel on, and Katrina Gorry had something else on entirely. And the way Mary Fowler made herself known in the best possible way.
All the while, you barely noticed the machine quietly whirring in the background. An underlying tone so soft and smooth it was scarcely perceptible amid the early action. Sometimes it just takes 15 minutes to set up what is coming in the 17th minute. When, finally, you are forced to remember Maika Hamano’s name.
When, with Australia sitting off and inviting their opponents to do something with the ball, the young Chelsea forward – on loan with Tottenham – laced it with a venom so deadly nobody can touch it. Even Mackenzie Arnold at full stretch could not offer an antidote to a worthy winner, in a heartbreaking finale to join the other heartbreaks.
This high-stakes encounter was otherwise relatively even. Possession was equal. Both sides spent good time in the other’s goal thirds and both entered every contest and went for every second ball as if their lives depended on it. Australia had 15 shots to Japan’s nine (5-3 on target).
The Matildas, for their part, will be left to rue many missed opportunities. There were a handful of almost-goals that simply required more precision. And then there were times when the hosts recycled the ball in Japan’s box, took three, four, five shots directly at goal, only to be blocked by all the blue bouncers stationed in front.
And even when Australia spent good portions of the second half knocking on the door, as they dominated the final 20 minutes and had their opponents defending desperately, it felt, inexplicably, as if Japan had an extra body on the field. There was no explaining it. It was just like Neilsen, that eccentrically intelligent Dane-Greenlander had described his side on Friday: “If you turn out the lights in the stadium so nobody could see anything, they could still find each other.”
Apart from one moment, in the 89th minutes, when the scene was set for Alanna Kennedy to top of a superb tournament with a sixth goal to send the match to extra-time. The always-surging Ellie Carpenter whipped in a cross and the header from Australia’s defender-cum-midfielder was bang on target. The pace alone would have done the job. Except that goalkeeper Ayaka Yamashita matched it to the inch, and confirmed those opening 15 minutes really did matter the most