Western Australia Institute of Sport will have two representatives in the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Germany, after Matildas Head Coach Tom Sermanni named his final 21-player squad this week.
17-year-old Sam Kerr will make her World Cup debut next month and joins her experienced Matildas vice-captain and Perth Glory teammate Collette McCallum in the Australian line-up.
Head Coach Sermanni admits that trimming the squad was extremely difficult.
“This has been one of the toughest selection processes I have ever had to go through and there were a lot of variables the coaching staff had to weigh up before selecting this final 21 player list,” said Sermanni.
“The camps have been incredibly competitive and players have emerged during this process that were not even on my list when we won the AFC Women’s Asian Cup last year.
“Overall I am very happy with the composition of the squad but it is incredibly difficult to have to leave certain players out.
“The team has changed dramatically in the past 18 months and as I said before the Asian Cup we will definitely go into this tournament with cautious optimism.”
Perth Glory striker Kerr says she is over the moon to be able to join the team in Germany.
“I’m pretty excited to be selected, it’s so close now,” she said.
“You’re never too confident of being selected, but I thought I did well in the training camps and with a bit of luck, I’m happy to be a part of it.
“Hopefully we can do better than the Quarter Finals stage like last time, which has to be the aim for us.
“It’s a bit nerve-racking playing Brazil first up, but we have to go in with a bit of confidence and play well.”
The Westfield Matildas leave for Germany on June 14 to play in two training matches against Mexico (June 20 – Gottingen) and England (June 23 – Wolfsburg) prior to their first match against Brazil on June 29 (June 30, 2.15am AEST SBS ONE), before playing Equatorial Guinea on July 3 (10pm AEST SBS TWO) and Norway on July 6 (July 7, 2am AEST SBS ONE).
– Football Australia
