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Steffen Schmidt - July 18, 2023
Australia vs Ireland
FIFA Women’s World Cup
Date: 20 July 2023, Thursday
Kick-off at 11:00 UK / 12:00 CET
Venue: Stadium Australia (Sydney).
Australia will start their quest for the best-ever World Cup result on Thursday when they take on Ireland in the opening game of Group B at the2023 Women’s World Cup.
The Matildas are co-hosts with New Zealand and they enter this tournament with the highest of ambitions after suffering a disappointing R16 elimination on penalties to Norway four years ago in France.
Soccer is very popular in Australia and this team have one of the world’s best players Sam Kerr in their ranks.
Many consider Kerr the best center forward on the planet right now and rightly so. However, this team is much more than Kerr.
The co-hosts represent a perfect blend of experience and youth. Manchester City’s Marty Fowler is one of the main stars despite being just 20-year-old.
We can’t resist the temptation of declaring Australia huge favorites on Thursday against debutants Ireland.
The visitors have never previously been at any big competition, including the European Championships.
They have a high-profile manager in the like of Vera Pauw who was the biggest catalyst for this success.
Nonetheless, Ireland have lost three of the last four friendlies without scoring a single goal in any of these defeats.
The latest came six days ago when they fell 0-3 to France in the final check before the start of the World Cup.
Australia, on the other side, enter this on the back of successive clean sheet wins over England and France.
The Matildas thus managed to break a 30-game unbeaten streak for England, beating the Lionesses in April this year in Brentford.
The gulf in quality between these rivals is significant and we expect the co-hosts to pick up an easy win on Thursday.
You can back Australia to win to nil at the 1.90 odds knowing they have kept clean sheets against both England and France in the last two exhibitions. We will also back Australia to win by two or more goals difference at the 1.91 odds.
