Australia 4-4-2 (Williams – Carpenter, Polkinghorne, Kennedy, Catley – Raso, Yallop, Van Egmond, Logarzo – Kerr, Foord)

Italy 4-4-2 (Giuliani – Bergamaschi, Gama, Linari, Guagni – Galli, Giugliano, Cernoia, Bonansea – Girelli, Mauro)

Group C kicked off with a surprise, as Italy came from behind to beat Australia 2-1. At the heart of the upset was the Italian defending and poor Australian build-up.

Setting up in a 4-4-2 defensively, Italy’s front two worked well in tandem to press the Australian build-up. The near-side striker would move up to press the ball, while the other would cover behind her. Both players would also make sure to look over their shoulder and cover shadow the two Australian midfielders behind them, meaning passes could not be played from centre-back to central midfielder. Once Italy had forced Australia’s build-up wide to the full-backs, their wingers – Galli and Bonansea – would press from in to out, again safeguarding the central channels.

There were ways for Australia to penetrate Italy’s defensive block, however they didn’t always exploit the opportunities available. One way was to go around. Italy’s wingers didn’t track Australia’s full-backs man-to-man when they pushed forward, as they were more zonal and looking to press forward onto Australia’s centre-backs when possible, so Australia could play diagonal balls out to their full-backs in space at times. Australia also deployed rotating sixes, with Van Egmond and Yallop taking it in turns to drop centrally in front of the centre-backs and look to receive, to try and get behind Italy’s first line of pressing.

There was quite a lot of space between Italy’s defence and midfield lines when they pressed. This was particularly noticeable when Australia were able to get one of their sixes on the ball behind Girelli and Mauro, as an Italian central midfielder would step up slightly to gain more access to the ball and sacrifice some space behind her as a result. But rarely did Australia have someone in position to break Italy’s midfield line, so this was wasted.

Australia’s assistant Ivan Jolic mentioned the above during a half-time interview. Asked about the message for the second half, he replied: “We think there’s big distances between their lines and we’re looking to play the ball into that pocket.”

De Vanna showed willingness to get into these spaces when she came on in the second half, as Australia pushed their full-backs up and their wingers more inside. However, a lack of bravery when passing out from the back hampered them still. Most of their attacks went wide for crosses in from the full-backs, which were generally dealt with comfortably by Gama, Linari and co.

Italy suffered no such problems implementing their own attacking strategy. When they regained possession they almost always looked to play instant, chipped passes directly over the top of Australia’s back line into the space available for the runs in behind of the front two and left winger Bonansea, who was a threat with her pace, intelligent movement and dribbling skill when cutting in onto her right foot. It wasn’t complex, but it constantly caused issues for Australia’s back line in transition.