Women’s World Cup: Sam Kerr and Matildas primed for do-or-die moment in round-of-16 clash with Denmark

The Matildas insist they don’t need the underdog tag to fire when they face Denmark for a place in the Women’s World Cup quarter-finals.

Australia delivered their best performance of the tournament with a brilliant backs-to-the-wall 4-0 win over Canada in their final group game.

Tony Gustavsson’s charges head into Monday night’s clash with the world No.13 side at Stadium Australia as favourites - and likely with skipper Sam Kerr available.

Whether they can handle the accompanying expectation is yet to be seen.

“This team have been very clear going into this tournament that they don’t play to prove anyone wrong or play for external reasons - they play for their reason why and they want something,” Gustavsson said.

“They know even though you might look at the ranking and say we’re favourites, look at those teams ranked 10, 11,12, 13 in the world, look at where the players are playing. I’d say it’s a 50-50 game in that sense.

“But these players have also proven themselves in a game that is do-or-die, that is backs against the wall.

“It was the round of 32 when we played Canada - this is the round of 16. It’s this one moment, one game - and the players know that.

“They just focus on themselves and their performance and know if we perform as good as we can do, we can beat anyone.

“But this World Cup has shown that if you don’t do it, you can lose against anyone.

“We need to be extremely humble and realise that we need to be focused in every single second of that game and be as solid defensively as we were against Canada.

“Because they have threats central, right and left and in very different ways.

“So don’t get rushed into thinking that this is going to be, because of ranking or something else, an easier game - because it’s not.

“It’s going to be a very, very tough game and we need to bring our A-game.”

Australia have mixed results in knockout games under Gustavsson.

At the Tokyo Olympics, they beat Great Britain 4-3 in extra time of their quarter-final, then lost to Sweden 1-0 in the semi-final.

Australia were then knocked out of the 2022 Asian Cup 1-0 by South Korea in the quarter-finals.

“When it comes to how we handle a knockout game, this team have proven over time, especially over the last 10 months, that there’s a maturity and development in the team to handle different types of games, different types of opponents,” Gustavsson said.

“So in a game like this, it’s not really about statistics from before or stats or history, it’s about this one game in this one moment against a completely different team, completely different circumstances.

“I look at this game in isolation and I know that the team is ready for it.”