{"id":481977,"date":"2025-10-08T04:02:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T04:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/481977\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T04:02:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T04:02:11","slug":"sam-kerr-expected-to-make-matildas-return-in-friendlies-against-wales-and-england-sam-kerr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/481977\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Kerr expected to make Matildas return in friendlies against Wales and England | Sam Kerr"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sam Kerr is set to play her first game for the Matildas<\/a> in almost two years with coach Joe Montemurro all but confirming the superstar striker\u2019s involvement in upcoming friendlies against Wales and England.<\/p>\n

In more good news ahead of next March\u2019s Asian Cup<\/a>, Montemurro also expects injured star Mary Fowler to be back playing with Manchester City by the end of the year.<\/p>\n

Kerr hasn\u2019t played for Australia since November 2023, having endured a horror rehabilitation from an ACL tear<\/a> suffered in a Chelsea training camp in January 2024.<\/p>\n

The superstar striker returned for the Blues last month, scoring her 100th goal for the club in her first game back, and Montemurro believes she has rediscovered her \u201cpassion\u201d for football.<\/p>\n

Montemurro confirmed Kerr had \u201ca good chance of making the squad\u201d for games against Wales at Cardiff City Stadium on 25 October (local time) and England at Derby\u2019s Pride Park three days later.<\/p>\n

The 32-year-old has been on limited minutes at Chelsea and is likely to be gradually introduced in those games.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great to see her back,\u201d Montemurro said at a media roundtable. \u201cObviously I\u2019ve had a few discussions with her, and I think the great thing is that she\u2019s really got an enthusiasm and a real passion back for the game. That\u2019s the first and foremost important part of that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll definitely do the right thing by her in terms of integrating her. She hasn\u2019t played 90 minutes yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we\u2019ll just see, getting closer to camp, what sort of minutes we believe is going to be the the best for her, so that we make this process I suppose \u2013 or return \u2013 perfect, both from a football and a mental perspective, that we make sure that she does the right things from that perspective.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the biggest thing before was the communication with the coaches and her and to make sure that we do the right thing for her minutes. But it\u2019s just great to have her back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kerr previously joined Matildas camps in a non-playing capacity as part of her rehabilitation.<\/p>\n

Montemurro has yet to speak to Kerr about whether she will retain the captaincy<\/a>, with Steph Catley donning the armband during her absence with aplomb.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIntegrating her is probably the first and foremost thing,\u201d Montemurro said of Kerr. \u201cAnd to be honest, I haven\u2019t had a discussion about it. I haven\u2019t spoken to anyone about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe focus has been getting the squad to a point where we want to and everyone\u2019s on board with that. But the captaincy will be assessed once we get closer to the first game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Playmaker Fowler, 22, is on the comeback trail from her ACL tear suffered in April and is already back running.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing really well,\u201d Montemurro said. \u201cHopefully the end of the year we\u2019ll see her getting some game time at City.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s pretty much full into the recovery. They\u2019re at that sort of crucial point now where they\u2019re probably starting to push her a little bit more, which is great.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be going to visit, actually next week \u2013 I\u2019ll be going to City next week. But she\u2019s travelling really well and fingers crossed the Asian Cup is looking really, really positive from that perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sam Kerr is set to play her first game for the Matildas in almost two years with coach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5010],"tags":[748,4884,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-481977","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wales","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115336560389494758","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}