{"id":503005,"date":"2026-02-25T11:23:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T11:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/503005\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T11:23:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T11:23:10","slug":"matildas-goalkeeper-mackenzie-arnold-unfazed-by-minimal-preparation-ahead-of-asian-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/503005\/","title":{"rendered":"Matildas goalkeeper Mackenzie Arnold unfazed by minimal preparation ahead of Asian Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matildas goalkeeper Mackenzie Arnold says she has enough game time and form behind her to perform in Australia’s Asian Cup tilt.<\/p>\n

Arnold was expected to be locked in a battle to start for the Matildas with Lyon goalkeeper Teagan Micah, who last week withdrew from the squad after another concussion.<\/p>\n

Given the two other goalkeepers in the squad are the untested Jada Whyman and three-cap youngster Chloe Lincoln, Arnold is considered a certain starter for the whole tournament.<\/p>\n

Arnold plays for NWSL club Portland Thorns in the United States.<\/p>\n

Get the latest:<\/p>\n

Stay across the all the action from the 2026 Women’s Asian Cup in Australia with ABC Sport<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Thorns are currently in preseason mode, but Arnold played down her relative lack of competitive minutes ahead of Sunday evening’s Asian Cup opener against the Philippines in Perth.<\/p>\n

“Obviously not ideal having the off-season over the Christmas break,” Arnold told reporters.<\/p>\n

“But we’ve been fully in preseason now. We’ve had two preseason competitions as well, so plenty of game time in that.<\/p>\n

“So it’s been good.”<\/p>\n

Expectations for the Matildas under coach Joe Montemurro are high ahead of the tournament on home soil, but Arnold said the players were not feeling external pressure.<\/p>\n

“There’s always going to be pressure surrounding a home tournament, but I think we try and keep that internal,” Arnold said.<\/p>\n

“We know what we can do, we know what we expect of each other.<\/p>\n

“I think after coming off the Olympics \u2014 it probably wasn’t our most successful campaign, and we know that.<\/p>\n

“So I definitely think there’s expectations, but in terms of pressure we just block that out and just keep it internal for us.”<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matildas goalkeeper Mackenzie Arnold says she has enough game time and form behind her to perform in Australia’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[41432,64,63,177788,44964,46,277,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-503005","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-asian-cup","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-mackenzie-arnold","12":"tag-matildas","13":"tag-perth","14":"tag-philippines","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}