Having qualified for the semi finals with the first two Asian Cup games, the Matildas were in the unexpectedly happy position of being able to rest some players and try out new combinations in their match against host nation and eight-time Asian Cup winners China.
And while it would be easy to argue that you need to front up with your experienced A-Team against such staunch opponents, who needed at least a draw in order to make it through the group stage and who were hungry, the second half of the second half proved just why it was important not to do so.
Sermanni intimated to me when I spoke to him after their first match last Wednesday that he would be rotating and resting players as much as possible to ensure that the team remained fit and fresh for the finals. So it was unsurprising that he started with both an unexpected Starting XI and an unexpected combination of the Starting XI in this non-crunch match.
Midfielder Aivi Luik dropped back to form part of a new-look defence and such consistent performers as Clare Polkinghorne, Lisa de Vanna, Melissa Barbieri, and Collette McCallum started on the bench. Other players who started included those who had only just returned from injury or who hadn't had a lot of recent match practice.
The unfamiliar combinations paired with the out-of-the-gates pressure the Chinese applied had the Matildas on the back foot from the outset. It perhaps wouldn't be too great a stretch to say that they looked, at times, shambolic. But while I — armchair expert that I am — would have made drastic changes fast, Sermanni held his nerve to let the Matildas fight through it and find their feet.
And fight through it they did. The Matildas had gone a goal down early after Aivi Luik lost her footing on the edge of the box, but goalkeeper Lydia Williams pulled off two stellar saves in the first half to keep it at the narrow margin.
A slight reshuffle into a 4-4-2 formation in the second half strengthened the defence, while the injection of de Vanna and McCallum brought the team pace and experience. The result was a more structured and settled approach, with those of us watching at home daring to hope that the speedy, defender-troubling, just-subbed-on de Vanna might snare an equaliser.
Which is when disaster struck and we were — ok, I was — reminded of the logic and method behind Sermanni's plan to rotate and rest players: de Vanna was injured in an at-pace, crunching tackle that saw her land awkwardly and immediately calling for assistance.
I don't know whether it was her knee or her ankle or both. I don't want to watch the replay of it any more times than the ABC already showed me. And I don't want to preempt a diagnosis. But, based on the distress she was in, it looks as though her Asian Cup campaign is over. It's a huge loss for the Matildas and for us as fans, because de Vanna is incredibly talented, experienced, and entertaining to watch. But it won't be — as callous as it might sound, because no one wants to see de Vanna out of the comp — a deathblow.
The Matildas will wait with fingers crossed for both the outcome of de Vanna's diagnosis and the Japan-DPR Korea match to determine their semi final opponents. So too, will we.
