On Day 1 of the CommBank Emerging Matildas Championships (EMC), the best female U15 and U16 footballers in the country went into battle at the Home of the Matildas at La Trobe University, dreaming they’ll return in the future as fully-fledged members of the celebrated national team.
After a day of pre-tournament testing on Thursday, where players and coaches got a taste of a high-performance environment and were assessed against elite benchmarks, around 400 wannabe-Matildas from Football Australia’s nine State and Territory federations, kicked off the CommBank Emerging Matildas Championships.
There was plenty of special goal-scoring action and celebrations to match, when the games kicked off.
Eva Hyland of U16 Queensland White set the tone when she ran onto a through ball for the only goal in the 58th minute against Northern Territory.
The goal sparked chaos as she celebrated wildly with her teammates, not all of whom were on the same page when it came to the choreography.
As soon as the game ended, they headed to the tournament photo booth to check the celebrations had been captured.
The snappers had to be alert for Victoria Blue’s Sophie Wenk’s goal, an Olimpico against Capital Football U16s in their 1-1 draw, the corner flying in to beat the Vics’ keeper.
NSW Sky set the pace early in the U15 competition, beating Tasmania 5-0 with Selena Mifsud, who was on the winning team last year and began her football journey as a two-year-old kicking around in the backyard with her mum and brother, scoring a brace.
Amelie Pouzet scored a hat-trick for Victoria Blue in their 4-1 U15 win over Capital Football, while Queensland Maroon had the biggest win on opening day – 6-0 over Tasmania with an impressive six goalscorers.
“The energy on day one has been really exciting and the games have been competitive. We have seen some nice team and individual goals,” Michael Cooper, head coach of the U17 CommBank Junior Matildas said.
“Overall, the intent from teams to play controlled possession football has increased, which is positive and something that we encourage in order to improve technique at this key age and stage of development.”
Day 2 is set to be an action-packed affair, with the U15's Queensland Maroon v NSW Sky and Tasmania v Vietnam facing off in Group A, Queensland White v Victoria White and Northern NSW v Western Australia in Group B and NSW Navy v Victoria Blue and South Australia v Capital Football in Group C.
The U16's will see South Australia v Tasmania and Queensland Maroon v NSW Sky go head-to-head in Group A, Western Australia v Northern NSW and Victoria White v NSW Regional in Group B and NSW Navy v Capital Football and Northern Territory v Victoria Blue in Group C.
TOURNAMENT DETAILS
CommBank Emerging Matildas Championships (Girls U15 & U16)
Dates: 9 – 15 April 2026
Location: Home of the Matildas, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria
HOW TO WATCH
KommunityTV is your destination for exclusive live streams of the 2026 CommBank Emerging Championships with News Corp full digital subscribers having exclusive access to watch the action.
Every match will be available to watch live and on demand. Live streams of all fields will be available for each day of the tournament, with replays posted at the end of each day.
FIXTURES & RESULTS
The Tournament Hub has all the competitions and results while the Tournament Guide features all the groups, fixtures and key information.
This article was originally published on football360.com.au
