Sam Kerr not in Matildas camp for key Switzerland and Germany games

Interim coach Tom Sermanni is focused on substance over style as he attempts to restore the Matildas’ confidence and get them back to winning ways.

But injured skipper Sam Kerr won’t be joining her teammates in their Europe-based camp.

The Matildas return to action for the first time since their disastrous Olympics group stage exit when they play Switzerland on Friday evening local time (Saturday 5am AEDT), then Germany three days later.

“There’s two things that I’m looking to (achieve) in this camp. One is for the team to put in a really good, solid, positive performance, to bring back that confidence in the team,” Sermanni said.

“But at the same time, it’s really important to get results.

“So if someone gave me a choice right now to say, ‘do you want a good performance, or do you want a result?’, right at this moment in time, I would say ‘we want a result.’

“And this team is fairly desperate to get back on a winning track again.”

Sermanni said he hoped to get Kerr back around her international teammates for the first time since she ruptured her ACL.

But that won’t be happening for now, with “no timelines” on her comeback.

“The key thing - and I have spoken to Sam - and the key thing that I think everyone stressed, the Chelsea staff, the Chelsea medical people, and our own people, is that it’s really important for Sam to take as long as it takes to make sure she comes back fully without cutting any corners,” Sermanni said.

“And that’s the process that she’s taken. At the moment, she’s in the midst of that, and really having some important parts of her treatment. So at this stage, she won’t be joining us on this tour.

“What happens a bit later in the year, we’ll address it at that time, because I honestly don’t know.

“But again, you just go off the key premise in all of this is getting Sam back on the football field as safely as possible, and to make sure when she comes back, she’s going to come back for a long time.”

Sermanni isn’t involved in Football Australia’s hunt for Tony Gustavsson’s permanent replacement.

Instead, he wants to pick the Matildas back up.

“The team was a bit beaten up after the outcome of the Olympics - there’s no point in denying that,” Sermanni said.

“And the confidence, I think, within the group, within the squad, was a bit low, because obviously this team has got high expectations.

“But athletes are resilient.To play at the top level, you have to be resilient. You have to come back and bounce back after bad results or bad tournaments.

“To be honest, I think the team did come into camp feeling a little bit low, but (after) a couple of days in the training field, everybody back together again, from my perspective, it’s been upbeat and very positive.”

Steph Catley will be carefully managed through the games after an injury-interrupted start to her season at Arsenal.