The Women’s Asian Cup is now well underway, with the Matildas preparing to face Iran in their second group game on the Gold Coast.<\/p>\n
The Australians opened their campaign with a 1-0 win over the Philippines in Perth<\/a>, while Iran lost its opener to South Korea 3-0<\/a>.<\/p>\n It is the second time Australia has hosted the tournament, with games spread across five stadiums in Perth, Sydney and the Gold Coast.<\/p>\n ABC Sport will have you covered on the air and online throughout, so make sure to bookmark abc.net.au\/news\/sport<\/a> on your phone and computer.<\/p>\n This is how to watch and how to follow the Matildas versus Iran.<\/p>\n Get the latest:<\/p>\n Listen to ABC Sport<\/a> for coverage of the 2026 AFC Women’s Asian Cup in Australia, and keep up to date online<\/a>.<\/p>\n What time do the Matildas play Iran?<\/p>\n The Matildas’ second group game is on Thursday, March 5 at Gold Coast Stadium, 7pm AEST, which is:<\/p>\n 8pm in NSW, Victoria, Tasmania and the ACT7:30pm in South Australia6:30pm in the Northern Territory5pm in Western AustraliaHow can I watch and follow the Matildas?<\/p>\n ABC Sport is live blogging every moment of Australian action at the 2026 Women’s Asian Cup. Our live coverage, as well as analysis, feature articles and all the tournament’s biggest storylines, can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n The ABC is also providing live radio broadcasts of all Matildas matches and all knockout games, with a dedicated Asian Cup button on ABC Listen<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ned Hall, Clint Wheeldon, Quentin Hull and Brett Sprigg are leading the play-by-play calls, alongside former Matildas Collette Gardiner, Alicia Ferguson, Amy Harrison, and Elissia Carnavas.<\/p>\n You can also watch all Matildas matches live on Network 10, with the entire tournament being streamed on Paramount Plus.<\/p>\n What happened in the first games?<\/p>\n It wasn’t the most convincing performance, but the Matildas beat the Philippines 1-0 thanks to a Sam Kerr header in the 14th minute. They dominated possession but only managed six shots on target, and have promised to be more clinical in front of goals as the tournament progresses.<\/p>\n Iran entered this tournament amidst the backdrop of violent crackdowns on anti-government protests and restrictions on their own freedom of speech. Just before their 3-0 loss to South Korea in the first game, news broke of the war unfolding in Iran<\/a>. So it has been a challenging period for the players and their compatriots leading into this tournament.<\/p>\n Who is in the Matildas squad?<\/p>\n All the big names that you’d expect are in the squad, including Sam Kerr, Mary Fowler, Steph Catley, Caitlin Foord and Ellie Carpenter.<\/p>\n The Matildas have had to deal with some major goalkeeping injury woes so far, with Teagan Micah and Jada Whyman ruled out of the tournament just before it kicked off. And first choice Mackenzie Arnold missed the first game with a calf injury.<\/p>\n Click here<\/a> for our analysis of their opening game, and here<\/a> for all the need-to-know information about the tournament.<\/p>\n How do I sign up for ABC Sport alerts?<\/p>\n If you want to be alerted about all the tournament’s biggest news, make sure to download the ABC News app on your mobile phone.<\/p>\n Then head to “profile and settings”, tap on “notifications”, then switch on the “breaking news” slider and tap “sport” under the topics section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Women’s Asian Cup is now well underway, with the Matildas preparing to face Iran in their second…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519222,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[41432,64,63,2485,5575,28533,44964,44965,85,254234],"class_list":{"0":"post-519221","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-gold-coast","12":"tag-iran","13":"tag-mary-fowler","14":"tag-matildas","15":"tag-sam-kerr","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-womens-asian-cup"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519221","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=519221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}