~ Australia national women’s football team head coach isn’t letting the pandemic stop him from easing into his new position
"VAN" (Sports Desk) :: Tony Gustavsson, who was appointed head coach of the Australian Matilda’s in September last year, began his tenure on 1 January. And with just six months until the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 – his first major tournament in charge – preparations are underway despite being 13,797km from Australia.
The former United States assistant coach spent first two weeks of January meeting staff and the 21 contracted players through Zoom.
"Obviously as a new coach and a coach in general, I would love to meet the team and meet the players,” the 47-year-old said in his first press conference as head coach.
“As a national team coach you always think you don't have enough time, you want to have more days and more games. It's always challenging even in normal circumstances. Then with a pandemic going on, it's difficult to get together and you get less time.
“I've tried to look at it this way, I'm always trying to look at the possibilities.
“So instead of looking at it like we lose time, we need to make use of time. Meaning, we need to think differently now, maybe think outside of the box a little bit. So if we can't get together physically, is there anything else we can do to gel and connect?”
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