What exactly is a football identity in Australia?<\/p>\n
According to Garriock, it will underpin the profile of player that starts to get developed across the country and form part of Australia\u2019s coach education. \u201cPrinciples,\u201d she added, that pave the way for national team coaches to then devise their plans and tactics to bring this to life.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2282392937-scaled-e1781901613978-1024x576.webp\")
Tony Popovic in Seattle. Photo: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Australia we\u2019ve we\u2019ve lacked a DNA of football and the Australian way of playing and that\u2019s one thing that we need to embark on,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think when commentators and pundits talk about Australians, whether it\u2019s men or women, at Senior or Youth International, it\u2019s about we\u2019ve always had a physical nature, we\u2019ve had that mentality that is never say die, and it\u2019s a character of being able to play until the end.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want to be just that. We want to make sure we can play football. We\u2019ve got to have a defensive mindset within the Socceroos, which has been fantastic and that certainly worked for us. But creativity is really important; being adaptable, flexible and versatile is really important for the Australian way of playing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n <\/p>\n
She did, however, distinguish between setting a vision and demanding the tactics. That will remain the purview of Tony Popovic and Joe Montemurro with Matildas, with eyes now on how the Socceroos evolve heading into the Asian Cup in six months.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing is missing in Australia, and that\u2019s a long-term vision for the game,\u201d Garriock said.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Emily-Husband-Martin-Kugeler-Joe-Montemurro-Heather-Garriock-Joe-Palatsides-1024x683.webp\")
Heather Garriock (R) with Martin Kugeler, FA CEO, and Matildas coach Joe Montemurro.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that\u2019s my job as the executive director.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to come from the board, it\u2019s going to come for the football department to implement it. And we do need direction. We do need a football strategy, and we will be developing one.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s one of our key priorities. And from a football methodology point of view, how we play, how we play the Australian way is really really important for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Football Australia handed Popovic a new contract on the eve of the World Cup, before a ball was kicked. Garriock explained why they made that call.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing is for sure: bringing in Tony Popovic as the coach some 18 months ago and him lifting the elite standards of our national teams, not just on the field but off the field as well, is what makes us proud.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the one key thing, and the reason why we signed Tony Popovic prior to the World Cup or 24 hours before the World Cup is because we\u2019re in a unique situation. We\u2019ve got six months until we embark on another major competition, the Asian Cup. And for us, stability and for the players and for the staff was important. And I really feel this is only going help the team grow for the Asia Cup and our expectation is high for the Asia Cup for this group.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crucial appointments loom, with a head of womens and mens football to be appointed, which will also feed into talent identification and scouting to ensure talent identification improves across the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralia\u2019s a large country, but not just in Australia as well. We\u2019ve got talent overseas that have got dual citizenship,\u201d Garriock added.<\/p>\n
\u201c(We need to make sure) we capitalise on everything. We need to talent ID our quality athletes, Australians have got a great physical nature about them and how we capture them early, but keep them in the funnel as well, keeping in mind that there\u2019s different ways to make it to the top and we do have late developers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS, TEXAS \u2014 Football Australia\u2019s Executive Director of Football Heather Garriock says \u201cthere\u2019s always more left in us\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":779295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44067,233172,44],"class_list":["post-779294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football-australia","tag-heather-garriock","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779294","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=779294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/779295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}