The Matildas know what Mary Fowler can do with the ball at her feet.
The challenge facing interim coach Tom Sermanni is how to make that happen more often.
Switzerland successfully quelled the 21-year-old’s influence in Saturday’s 1-1 draw, when Fowler often dropped into far deeper positions.
Sermanni is determined to have gifted Manchester City starlet Fowler – who looms as the future of the Matildas’ attack – firing in their next friendly against world No.4 Germany on Monday night [Tuesday 4.10am AEDT].
‘That’s one of the things that we’re looking at doing is getting in a position where she’s going to hurt the opposition a little bit more, and obviously trying to get her in a position where she gets more of the ball,’ Sermanni said.
‘In fairness to Switzerland, they had, it looked like a deliberate plan to actually shut us down in our right hand side, with Ellie [Carpenter] and with Mary and I think it made it difficult for her to get into the game.
‘But with the type of game it’s going to be against Germany, I think that’s an opportunity for her to get into more space, to be able to get on the ball more, and hopefully to create more for us.’
While Fowler is excellent in tight spaces, Sermanni was asked if players were potentially reluctant to give her the ball in those positions due to a fear of turning it over.
He believed it was a combination of that and Fowler needing to look like she wanted to get on the ball.
‘It’s a good point and in essence, should be an easy fixable point, in the sense of even players having a chat with each other: ‘Just give me the ball and I can handle it’,’ he said.
Sermanni was determined not to dwell on Germany’s 3-0 win over Australia in their Olympics group stage opener, expecting the teams to be better matched.
But after the Germans beat England 4-3 at Wembley, he expects a far more open, attacking affair in Duisberg than the Swiss encounter.
Sermanni emphasised the importance of defending strongly first, then allowing Australia’s attacking weapons to shine.
It will be an emotional game for Germany, who are sending off retiring superstar striker Alexandra Popp.
‘It’s going to be a tough environment and interestingly, when you look at the Matildas certainly over the last couple of years, they’re probably just in an environment where the fans have been on their side,’ Sermanni said.
‘So it’s actually going to be a different kind of experience and this is the kind of thing that we need to cope with.
‘One of the important things we’ll need to discuss leading into the game is how we manage to shut out that noise and not get caught up in the emotion of the game, get caught up in the emotion of the crowd, get caught up in the noise – and really just focus on football.’