Melbourne Victory goalkeeper and Westfield Matildas Captain Melissa Barbieri was one of 18 players to depart Sydney this morning, bound for the 2010 Peace Queen Cup in Suwon, Korea.
Melbourne Victory goalkeeper and Westfield Matildas Captain Melissa Barbieri was one of 18 players to depart Sydney this morning, bound for the 2010 Peace Queen Cup in Suwon, Korea.
Barbieri, who led the Matildas to an historic win in the 2010 Asian Cup, will be in possession of the captains arm-band once again as our women take on Mexico and Taiwan – before heading to Europe to face the might of Germany, who are the Number 2 ranked side in the world.
Although preparation for the upcoming matches has been limited, Coach Tom Sermanni believes the next three weeks will be a good guide in how the team is progressing before the beginning of the Westfield W-League season on November 6.
“All of our players are in full training for the Westfield W-League so the team is fit and ready to play,” said Sermanni.
“Hopefully our European based players come back fresh as the team will only have a couple of days to prepare before the first match against Mexico on October 17.
“This should be a good test for us as Mexico are in final preparations for their World Cup qualifiers and of course Germany will be our biggest test since the Asian Cup and will give me a good understanding of where we stand and what we need to focus on before June 2011.”
The squad will be missing the services of three senior members of the AFC Women-s Asian Cup winning squad including Lisa De Vanna, who is on the comeback from the broken leg she sustained at the Asian Cup, Heather Garriock who is being rested following a busy post Asian Cup schedule in Denmark and will use the time to fully recover from her recent minor ankle surgery, and Sarah Walsh who will miss the trip to concentrate on a full recovery from recent injury set-backs.
