Gustavsson said it was too soon to know if Catley will be fit for Australia’s opening fixture against Germany on July 25 but that everyone within Camp Matilda was doing everything possible to give her a chance of being involved.
Beyond that, Gustavsson has some breathing room.
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A last-minute change to Olympic regulations means that competing teams can now replace someone from their 18-player squads with one of their four alternate players for injury, illness or mental health reasons, up to six hours before kick-off – and, crucially, that the player who dropped out of the squad can come back in once they’re medically cleared. It effectively increases the size of squads to 22, just with a little bit more paperwork involved, and means Catley’s situation is not as serious as it otherwise would have been.
Kaitlyn Torpey, who was also ruled out of the Canada match at the same time as Catley after also bringing a “lower leg injury” into camp, may end up seeing some minutes against Germany after making good progress on the training pitch, Gustavsson said. He also tried to temper expectations, saying players would be going into the friendly feeling tired due to the intensity of their preparations.
“But that was the plan,” he said. “You’re going to see a lot of rotation, a lot of subs … we need to approach this game as if it is the Olympics.”