Yallop tests positive as COVID sends scare through Matildas camp

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Matildas midfielder Tameka Yallop has tested positive for COVID-19, sending a major scare through the team in the midst of their Asian Cup campaign in India.

Yallop’s positive result was revealed by Football Australia in a press release early on Thursday, with the 30-year-old now in isolation and being monitored by team medical staff.

Tameka Yallop has tested positive for COVID-19 at the Asian Cup.Credit:Getty

All other players and staff have returned negative tests, FA said, with no other details released regarding Yallop or how she came to contract the coronavirus.

The Matildas play their third and final Group B fixture at 1am on Friday morning (AEDT) against Thailand in Mumbai.

While the team is assured of progression into the knockout phase after big wins over Indonesia and the Phillipines, COVID-19 has been lurking ominously in the background of the Asian Cup, with host nation India forced out of the tournament following an outbreak that prevented them from naming the minimum 13 players for a match.

Midfielder Emily van Egmond said earlier this week the team was doing its best to ignore the threat of COVID-19.

“It’s a pandemic and we are ensuring we do all that we can but the sole focus for us is football,” she said.

“We are here to perform, here to do a job and for us to continue putting our best foot forward on the park. We’re trying not to focus on the outside noise and only what we can control.”

Yallop came off the bench to score a goal in Australia’s 18-0 rout of Indonesia, and started in the 4-0 win over Alen Stajcic’s Phillipines, but the Matildas should have adequate cover in midfield to account for her absence against Thailand.

Speaking before the tournament to the Herald and The Age, Football Australia chief executive James Johnson predicted the pandemic would haunt the Asian Cup in some way, and that there was only so much federations like FA could do to prevent the highly-transmissible Omicron variant from reaching the team environment.

“When they’re in our control [for a pre-tournament camp in] in Dubai, we chartered them to India and it’s the safest we could make it, but it’s not bulletproof unfortunately – that’s just the way it is,” Johnson said.

“COVID will play a factor in the Asian Cup, for sure, with us or the other teams. We’ve just got to be the team that deals the best with COVID to put ourselves in the best opportunity to win the tournament.”

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