Indiana Dos Santos has had the ultimate honour of wearing the captains armband for the Junior Matildas.
She flew to Indonesia having just arrived back in Sydney following the 2024 Liberty A-League Grand Final where she provided the match winning assist for Shea Connors.
The 16-year-old sensation only had one day between arriving in Bali and the first match so didn’t come off the bench in the opening group stage game against China which the Aussies lost 3-0.
For this second match which was played on Friday night, Dos Santos was in the Starting XI but more than that, proudly wore the captains armband for her country for the very first time.
Sadly for the Junior Matildas, it wasn’t to be, falling behind early against defending champions Japan and unable to recover.
Dos Santos did get on the scoresheet late in stoppage time from the penalty spot, however it was only a consolation goal with the Little Nadeshiko too strong, running out 4-1 winners.
Australia are now unable to make it out of the Group Stage and hence will miss out on qualification for the FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup.
They now close out their AFC U17 Women’s Asian Cup with a match against Thailand on Monday night, kicking off at 6pm AEST and broadcast live on the AFC Asian Cup YouTube channel.
