The best U15 and U16 female Victorian footballers certainly made their mark on day one of the CommBank Emerging Matildas Championships, at the Home of the Matildas on Friday.
The U15 White team started the day with a 1-1 draw against Football West, with Alexis Photi scoring Victoria's first goal of the tournament, receiving the ball at the edge of the box, before rounding the goalkeeper and slotting into an empty net.
Whilst Photi was the first, she was arguably beaten in shock and awe by the other Victorian goal in the early time slot, as Sophie Wenk scored directly from a corner kick - known as an Olympico - as the U16 Blue team also ran out a 1-1 draw with Capital Football.
The biggest goal haul of the day came from U15 Blue's Amelie Pouzet, netting an impressive hat-trick as her side earned their first of two 4-1 victories for the day. However, the second would come tougher as they were forced to chase the game when South Australia took an early lead, before a resounding comeback sets the side up perfectly ahead of the weekend.
The U16 White team will look to bounce back quickly after they were beaten 3-0 by Northern NSW.
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 across the wider tournament.
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.
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.
Queensland Maroon had the biggest win on opening day – 6-0 over Tasmania with an impressive six goalscorers.
Day two 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.
DAY ONE VICTORIAN RESULTS
U16 Victoria Blue 1 - 1 Capital Football
U15 Victoria White 1 - 1 Western Australia
U15 Victoria Blue 4 - 1 Capital Football
U16 Victoria White 0 - 3 Northern NSW
U15 Victoria Blue 4 -1 South Australia
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