‘She has something’: Why Matildas coach threw 17-year-old defender to the wolves
Matildas coach Tony Gustavsson has no regrets about throwing Jessika Nash to the wolves against the United States and has challenged the 17-year-old to prove she belongs at international level with her performances in the A-League Women for Sydney FC this season.
Nash will be one of the most closely watched players in the competition after she made her debut for Australia in a disastrous 3-0 defeat to the US last weekend. With usual centre-backs Alanna Kennedy and Clare Polkinghorne unavailable, Gustavsson boldly opted to play the western Sydney product alongside 19-year-old Courtney Nevin and has weathered heavy criticism in some quarters for fielding such a raw pairing against the reigning world champions, who opened the scoring after 24 seconds.
Jessika Nash’s Matildas debut a torrid one, but coach Tony Gustavsson believes she could have a long career for the national team.Credit:Getty
But Gustavsson said he was not worried that the torrid experience might puncture Nash’s confidence after seeing the way she carried herself in camp and from reports on her conduct as captain of the Young Matildas.
“I would never play a 17-year-old [if] I thought it could potentially scar her for life. That would be irresponsible,” Gustavsson told the Herald and The Age.
“If a player that age doesn’t have the right character, then that would be irresponsible to me. I played her because I sensed it’s a little bit of a different personality for a 17-year-old. She has something there that is . . . she seems to be tough, and more mature than her years.
“Some young players tend to be a bit hesitant in the first camp with the senior national team, which is normal. But I’ve seen her leadership skills with her club team and youth national team environments, and she brought that. Even at the first training, she communicated and pointed and kind of which you very seldom see with a young player like that. That impressed me. I said that early on – keep bringing it, I’m impressed.”
Gustavsson also said it wasn’t fair to pin that first-minute goal scored by US forward Ashley Hatch solely on Nash, who he withdrew at half-time in what he insisted was a planned substitution.
“It wasn’t just her, either. A lot of people said that, but it wasn’t, really,” he said.
“We lost an aerial duel before with Ellie Carpenter that she should have won, Nevin should have had a little bit of cover in there, but because she’s 17, everyone tends to say, ‘Hey, we copped a goal because of our 17-year-old centre-back’. But it was more than that to it.
“I told her [being subbed] was not because of your performance – actually I gave her credit how she grew into the game, especially the two sequences when she was dribbling, as the centre-back, as the last defender. Think about it: you’re 17, you cough [up] that goal, and there’s maybe one in the 15th minute and another in the middle of the half where she’s faking a pass this way, boom, she gets out of pressure and then passes the ball.
“Those moments, I gave her credit. That’s the bravery you should keep having.”
Nash only made her A-League debut in December last year for Canberra United and has joined Sydney FC this season. Gustavsson’s message for her ahead of Saturday’s opener against the Newcastle Jets is simple.
“The end message for her after the camp was to remind her that this is the start of something – don’t feel pressure now, this was a taste of something you’re going to experience for a long time from now. And then we’ll see,” he said.
“Whether she’s ready for 2023 [the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand], maybe that’s too early, but she needed this and deserved this, and she now knows what it’s like. Because now when she goes back to her club, she knows what she’s aiming for. Now she knows how fast it is, how physical it is, and now she can work towards that.”
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