It was announced last week that Arsenal Women will be traveling down under to Melbourne, Australia after the season ends, to face off against some of Australia’s best women stars. Being the first women’s team to do this puts our Gunners ahead of the curve again, and it will be a special trip for our trio of Australian Matildas, as they get to showcase their club football for the first time in their country.
This is a huge achievement for women’s football and, when you sit back and look at how much women’s football has been able to grow, over the past 10 years, its incredible. Australia isn’t a massive footballing country but we have fallen in love with women’s football. The FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 was staged in Australia & New Zealand last year, and saw thousands and thousands of fans come out in support over the tournament.
Eidevall was asked, in his pre-match press conference for our game against Aston Villa on Sunday, about the trip down under and Arsenal’s head coach said “Let’s acknowledge the great thing that it’s commercially viable for us to do a post-season trip like this. That shows the club’s investment but also the popularity that the team has, not only in the UK but across the globe.”
“I was lucky enough to experience the World Cup there last summer, and you can see what enthusiasm and interest women’s football has in Australia. It’s great that we can continue to build and this is another opportunity to do that both for women’s football in general, but also Arsenal as a specific club.”
“It is now about making the most out of that opportunity. That means that for some players it will be the right thing to go, and for others it will not be the right thing if we talk about it from a loading and welfare perspective. We need to make good and deliberate decisions on that.”
He also said that it will give our players the chance to stay match fit, and he will be able to give some of the younger upcoming players a chance to play top level football, and travel with the club saying “It’s going to be a great opportunity for us to see our first-year professionals get experience of travelling and playing with us, We really need to grab that opportunity to invest time in these players, in combination with needing to have a strong team going out to showcase Arsenal to fans in another continent and the way we want to play football. It’s really about finding that balance and I’m in high hopes that we can do that.”
A huge opportunity for Arsenal Women to showcase what they’ve built, and have to offer. There will no doubt be a massive crowd, and plenty of Arsenal supporters out to show their support. It might be a bit crazy for a few of the players, being so far away from home, but realising just how big a club Arsenal really is.. Fans can purchase tickets via Arsenal.com.
Are you planning on making the trip to Australia in May?
Daisy Mae
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