MATILDAS coach Alen Stajcic has hailed depth and versatility as the ‘most important thing’ for his team moving forward into the World Cup and beyond.

Speaking ahead of a pair of friendlies against Chile, Stajcic suggested that under his stewardship the team have moved away from an over reliance on the same players to become a more competitive force.

“I think every part of the team is important,” Stajcic said.

“The more depth, I’ve spoken about depth for a number of years, and players being versatile and playing in different positions and the amount of players we’ve actually got fighting for positions.

“I think that’s the most important thing for this team being a competitive team moving forward, not just for next year’s World Cup but beyond. Obviously this team over the last period of time has relied probably before I started on the same 10, 12,13 players – and I think the more depth, the more competition, the more flexibility, the more versatility we have in this team, the greater chance we are of being successful for a longer time.”

The Matildas are just seven months from a World Cup, and are in the process of fine tuning their personnel to ensure the best chance of a deep run at France in June. Four years ago, the Aussies were knocked out in the quarter finals by Japan.

In hindsight, Stajcic believes his team ran out of legs by the time they reached that fifth match, and his focus on depth with the current group should help to avoid a similar downfall this time around.

“But even within a tournament, the greater chance we have of having a full quality squad on each game,” he said.

“So probably at the last World Cup, if we reflect back, we probably got tired by game five. We were a little bit unlucky in the draw; to have to play five big guns one after the other, but certainly having depth and flexibility and versatility in every position is a key factor for our team rather than we need more players in defence or midfield.”

Some have criticised the manager’s decision to trial players across unfamiliar positions, but he believes this flexibility is actually one of their major strengths as a side.

“We’ve seen some players playing two positions so now we’ve got a case where [Steph] Catley has played well for our team at centre-back and left back, Emily Van Egmond has played well as a 6 and a 10, Sam Kerr has played well as an 11 and a 9,” Stajcic explained.

“I could rifle through another seven or eight players who have established themselves in our team in at least two positions, so having that flexibility within our team has certainly been strength of our team and has certainly been a key component in us.

“This year, we’ve probably had on average seven or eight injuries per game going all the way back to February and yet we’ve still maintained a fairly good level throughout.”