Congratulations to Michelle Heyman on her return to the Matildas after five years.
Heyman is 35 years old now, but has scored 20 goals in 61 appearances for the Australian women’s national football team. She retired in May 2019.
She retired with a fantastic record in the W-League, during her eight year spell at Canberra United, she scored 56 goals in 93 games between 2010 and 2018. She won the Golden Boot twice, as well as two Championships and three Premierships.
At the end of the 2018 season she joined Adelaide United, and following that took a year off before rejoining Canberra United in 2020. Her form since taking that year off has been even more impressive than her first spell with the club in terms of goals per game.
In January 2024, Heyman became the first W-League player to score 100 league goals, and achieved the feat against former club Adelaide United.
In November of 2023 an article was published implying that Alen Stajcic was to blame for Michelle Heyman’s retirement from International football. It would appear that Stajcic had been removed as coach of the Matildas five months before his replacement Ante Milicic opted not to offer her a Matildas contract..
Also in November last year Heyman gave an interview about her axing which was highly critical of the way things were handled by Football Australia (Or FFA as they were then). “As soon as they don’t need you, you are just gone. That was after ten years of service…I think back then things were definitely done wrong. I had to just pretend that I wanted to retire, but it was mainly because I got fired.” She was scathing in terms of her treatment by the game’s governing body, and raised questions as to whether the support mechanisms were in place for her mental health issues.
It made one wonder why anyone would want to go back into that environment. However, as Heyman also stated in that same interview the financial rewards for the Matildas have come a long way.
Head Coach of the Matildas, Swede Tony Gustavsson was appointed in September 2020, after Heyman had retired.
Prior to the FIFA Women’s World Cup there were question marks over his appointment. To some there still are.
The Matildas performance at the World Cup was superb, but how many times did the coach influence the outcome of a match? Whispers post tournament were that him basking in the limelight ahead of the players rankled with many.
In June 2022 The Matildas suffered a series of defeats, and the coach claimed he was bringing through the next generation. After the World Cup the Matildas played two games against Canada, they lost 5-0 and 1-0.
After those defeats Gustavsson said, “We can just put up a lineup to win, or expand on the long, long term goal, which is develop this team and take it to the next step. So we were willing to risk a result, not that we wanted to lose, but we’re willing to look at players tonight and it cost us and we’ve done that a couple of times before. I look back at Holland, Germany when I started, the Spain game, Ireland game, Thailand game, Scotland game, Portugal – there’s a lot of games where we have rotated a lot of players to look at the depth in the roster, to also test where we are. Where are we as a nation, where are we with this team in terms of the depth in the roster as well.”
Yet as he is entitled to, come his squad for Olympic qualification the coach has opted for experience, rather than to reward up and coming in form players, such as Melbourne Victory’s Melina Ayers.
The squad selected for the Olympic qualifiers against 49th ranked Uzbekistan is heavy on experience. Two debutants are named in the squad Kaitlyn Torpey and Jada Whyman. The latter a goalkeeper who is extremely unlikely to get a game. Only three other players in the 23 player squad have less than 20 caps. While seven have over 100 international Caps. .
This is becoming a pattern with Tony Gustavsson, say one thing and do the opposite. Is he playing with the media, many of whom pay no heed to what he has said in the past and just lap up what he says at that time?
Some will say we should not ignore the results in the Matildas Olympic qualifying campaign where they defeated Iran, the Phillipines and Chinese Taipei, however with the Matildas ranked 10 and Iran 61, the Phillipines 49 and Chinese Taipei 37, it is fair to say there would have been questions asked if they had not won these three games.
However, any coach worth his salt would be concerned that the Matildas have only scored one goal in their last three World Cup matches and failed to score against Canada. That is one goal in 480 minutes, or five games and one period of 30 minutes extra time.
Gustavsson would no doubt have been banking on Sam Kerr to take the field and net him a few goals, but after injuring her ACL and having had a subsequent operation he is no longer able to fall back on her for the final Olympic qualifier against Uzbekistan. Then should they qualify, at the Olympic Games in Paris.
The rest of the squad would not doubt have been saying look at what we achieved when Kerr was injured at the World Cup, but the coach needed a reliable back-up.
Heyman has continued her goalscoring form at Canberra United in the A-League Women’s league, and as a result has forced her way back into the international reckoning. There can be no doubt as the highest scoring Australian player in the league she deserves her place in the current Matildas squad.
However, her selection has raised a number of questions, some fair and reasonable, some less so.
One being that her selection has been made to hush up her comments from last year? Was this really a peace offering from Football Australia?
Is her selection a reflection on the lack of talent coming through? Has Gustavsson been unable to bring through suitable talent in his four years at the helm? Talent to slot in when his first line strikers are unavailable.
Heyman has been selected on the weight of goals she has scored in the A League. She has experience at international level. However, the A-League is a very different standard from International competition. With or without Heyman, Australia should have enough firepower to overcome Uzbekistan over two games, a team that has goalscoring challenges of their own.
Michelle Heyman’s last goal for the national team came in the 2016 Olympic games against Zimbabwe. It would be the perfect comeback if she scored to help Australia qualify for Paris 2024. If she does it may well book her a place in Paris.
