Foord marks milestone with a goal for Australia

Steph Catley and Caitlin Foord both started Australia’s 1-0 friendly defeat at home to Mexico on Saturday.

“It’s disappointing, but there’s also the realisation that we’re at the very start of a journey towards the World Cup,” Catley said after the game.

There was an opportunity to respond on Tuesday though, when Matildas got revenge on Mexico with a 3-1 friendly win.

Foord wore the captain’s armband for her country and scored on her 150th Australia appearance, demonstrating excellent strength to turn away from her defender and place the ball inside the far post for Australia's third of the night.

Foord is now the third joint-highest top goalscorer for Australia with 41 goals.

Catley also played the full 90 minutes on Tuesday

Speaking after the game, Foord said: “To reach 100 is obviously huge, and for myself, 150 as well. It’s nice to enjoy these moments together, and celebrate them, which we have during this series.”

In FIFA Women’s World Cup qualifying, Alessia Russo played the full 90 minutes, Chloe Kelly came on in the 64th minute and Lotte Wubben-Moy was an unused substitute as the Lionesses got back to winning ways with a 3-0 victory over Ukraine at Everton’s Hill Dickinson Stadium.

Russo assisted Georgia Stanway for England’s second goal of the game.

It wasn’t enough to ensure automatic qualification for the World Cup though, so, after finishing second in Group C on 15 points (only behind Spain on goal difference), Sarina Wiegman’s side will have to go through the play-offs in October.

“It’s nice to come back to England, play in front of all of our fans and get a win,” Russo said. “We also wanted to qualify automatically for the World Cup but now we’re going to the play-offs and that’s tough but it’s football. We had the toughest group playing Spain and we won five out of six games and have still not gone through.”

As for Spain, Mariona Caldentey played the first half of their big 6-1 win away to Iceland on Tuesday, racking up the goal difference and qualifying for the World Cup with aplomb.

Also going into the play-offs are Sweden following their 2-2 draw at home to Italy. It was a spirited comeback from 2-0 down with Smilla Holmberg and Stina Blackstenius both playing the full 90 minutes to finish third in Group A with eight points from six games.

Emily Fox was in international friendly action for USA, playing 90 minutes of Saturday’s 2-1 friendly defeat away to Brazil, and then the first half of Wednesday’s 1-0 friendly win away to Brazil.

Olivia Smith got 63 minutes under her belt as Canada thumped Costa Rica 6-0 away from home on Wednesday in a friendly.

At under-23s level, Anneke Borbe came on at half-time in Germany’s 2-2 friendly draw at home to Denmark on Monday.

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