Meet Charli, SA’s next sporting sensation

With a global viewing audience of 2 billion, local hero Charli Grant can’t wait to take the field in a home Women’s World Cup. But for her it’s as much about what it means for her sport and the future of the women’s game.

From 15,000km away Charli Grant is trying to imagine the sensation. Down the Zoom line from Sweden, the ebullient Grant is trying to wrap her head around the fact on Saturday she will be standing in front of 80,000 frenzied football fans as Australia kicks off its campaign to win the Women’s World Cup.

“It’s just so exciting,’’ she says. “I get messages from friends that aren’t even that into football and they’re all excited about it too. It gives me goosebumps thinking about that.

“It’s incredible and it’s going to be huge for women’s football in Australia. But sport in general and Australia.’’

And that is true.

The World Cup is probably the biggest sporting event held in Australia since the 2000 Olympics. The 2019 event in France was watched by 1.12 billion around the world.

Organisers are predicting as many as 2 billion will tune in to watch the 30 days of action across Australia and New Zealand, beginning on July 20.

Australia’s first match is against Ireland at a sold-out 80,000 capacity Stadium Australia in Sydney. Such was the demand for the game that it was moved from the smaller Sydney Football Stadium to the old Olympic venue. Nigeria and Canada round out Australia’s group and the Matildas will need to finish top two in their group to qualify for the next stage.

It’s a tournament that will take over the country, with games also being played in Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.

Grant is one of two South Australians in the squad, the other being Alex Chidiac, and is part of a team that some predict could win the tournament, led by one of the world’s top players in Chelsea superstar Sam Kerr.

South Australian Matilda Charli Grant. Picture: Ann Odong /Football Australia

But whether Kerr ends up holding the trophy aloft in Sydney on August 20 or not, the World Cup represents another huge step forward in a game that has flourished and grown significantly over the past decade.

Grant is only 21, but when she started playing the game at Emmaus Catholic primary school in the south of Adelaide she was only one of two girls in what was ostensibly a boys’ team.

Soccer was the main sport at the school and her older brother Jacob also played, although it was a game foreign to her mum Jody and her dad Andrew.

“My mum played netball growing up, and always followed the AFL, and Dad played a bit of footy and a bit of cricket, so they both were never actually soccer fans,’’ she says.

“But we’ve always loved sport growing up and they’ve always been supportive of whatever we do.’’

Like many a young girl, Grant also played netball at school. It’s a game she enjoyed but there was something about the round ball game where you used your feet rather than your hands that appealed more to her.

Charli Grant in Australian colours. Picture: Harriet Lander / Football Australia

It’s been many years in the making, but SA’s Charli Grant can’t wait to take part in the Women’s World Cup. Picture: Riley Williams

“I think it was just the freedom of it,’’ she says. “Netball’s quite a restrictive sort of sport in a sense, I did love playing it, don’t get me wrong, but football … I just felt like there’s so much freedom to express yourself on the ball and I love running. That’s always been a strength of mine.’’

It became evident early on that Grant had potential. She was playing at Cumberland United and went to a trial for a representative state under-12 team when she was only nine. It was her dad’s idea, the thinking being that it would be a good experience rather than any great expectation of making the squad. So when the name “Charli’’ was called she didn’t think it was for her. Partly because at that time not many people called her Charli. She is a Charlotte on her birth certificate.

It spark

Adelaide United players (L-R) Lara Kirkby and Charlotte “Charli” Grant at Hindmarsh stadium in 2021, when Grant was still hoping to make the Australian team for the 2023 World Cup. Picture: Naomi Jellicoe

ed a realisation in Grant that football could take her places.

“I think that’s when I realised that I did have potential to keep pushing on further,’’ she says.

Not that it was all sport. Grant was a self-described “little goodie two shoes’’ at school.

“I always wanted to do everything right. Right on time, hand in my homework, I had to make sure it’s all done to perfection. I was a bit of a perfectionist,’’ she says with a laugh and wonders now why she put herself through all that stress.

“I always wanted to do well in everything I did, so whether that was sports, school or anything.’’

In a surprising twist, Grant nominates maths as her favourite subject at school, apart from sport obviously. Something about the certainty of formulas, equations and the iron clad rules of mathematics must have appealed to that sense of perfection.

“I liked how it’s always got an answer, where some other subjects there’s no right or wrong. So I liked how maths was like that,’’ she says.

Playing for the Matildas, playing professional football, first for Adelaide United then in Europe was always the ambition, but there was also a fallback just in case. Grant also makes the point that even those few short years ago when she was at school, there wasn’t a lot of money to be made in women’s football, so another job was a necessity. That has started to change in recent years, but Grant was wise enough to know that she couldn’t necessarily rely on the game to provide a living.

Charli Grant can’t wait to hit the field in next week’s match-up against Ireland. Picture: Ann Odong/Football Australia

It meant that after finishing secondary school at Woodcroft College, Grant started a health sciences degree before switching to study psychology at the University of South Australia.

“I’ve moved into a psychology degree because I really like the idea of helping others and so I thought that was nicely aligned,’’ she says.

In an age where young people struggle more than ever with pressures such as social media, Grants says helping kids appeals to her.

“You get to an age where it is really everyone’s developing at different levels and forming different social groups,’’ she says. “And some people can be left out or struggle behind, so I think that’s certainly (an area) I would want to give back to and help with later on.’’

Grant was training with Adelaide United when she was 16 and signed full time as a 17-year-old. By then she was a marauding full back, a player who would be up and down the pitch defending and attacking.

In her earlier years, she had been an attacking player but in one under-age national championships her coach switched her to defence to keep an eye on a speedy winger and a defender was born.

“It was always a dream of mine to play for like United when I was young,’’ she says.

Grant was always at Adelaide games, pestering players such as Matildas’ striker Michelle Heyman for autographs, before she found herself on the field with them.

“There were some really big names I looked up to and to play alongside was really exciting, but also nerve-racking,’’ she says.

Ivan Karlovic was the coach who signed Grant for Adelaide and says she stood out from the start.

“It’s no mistake she is where she is at this point in time,’’ Karlovic says. “She has a great a great demeanour, a really bubbly personality, always had a smile on her face, but she had a determination to be successful from a very young age and you could see that and she was driven to get to the top.’’

Karlovic says Grant always worked hard on her game and was always willing to listen and “that’s why the ceiling was always set at a really high level. She’s continuously improved and will continue to improve because her attitude is spot on’’.

“From a coaching point of view she was very coachable and easy to work with because she would take everything in like a sponge,’’ he says.

Charli Grant celebrates victory with teammates after defeating England during the Women's International Friendly match between England and Australia at Gtech Community Stadium on April 11, 2023 in Brentford, England. Picture: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images

After three seasons with Adelaide, and playing for Australia at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Grant decided to pursue the dream of every footballer and head to Europe.

There was some trepidation. How could there not be?

The list of Australian footballers, women and men, who have chased the dream only to be left disappointed is long. European football is a cut-throat environment and it takes more than just talent to make it.

Grant moved to Sweden to play for Rosengard, a powerhouse team in that country’s Damallsvenskan league. Sweden has long been a force in women’s football and finished third at the 2019 World Cup.

“I’d always dreamt of playing in Europe, but you never know when the right time is to go and you hear the horror stories of people going overseas and then it not working out,’’ she says.

“So you think ‘do I want to be in that environment and maybe go a step backwards and not improve?’’’

Jody Brown of Jamaica competes for the ball with Charli Grant during the Cup of Nations match between the Australia Matildas and Jamaica at McDonald Jones Stadium on February 22, 2023 in Newcastle. Picture: Scott Gardiner/Getty

But Grant knew a few other Australians had moved to Sweden and done well. She also thought it would help the technical and tactical side of her game.

“Whether I play or not, I’m going to be in an amazing training environment, I can only benefit from it,’’ was her thought process.

And from day one that expectation was fulfilled.

“I remember my first training at Rosengard,’’ she says. “We’re doing a possession-based drill and I was chasing shadows. The ball was moving so quickly, I’d never been in such a fast-paced possession game.’’

For a while Grant did find it a struggle to adapt. There wasn’t much game time, there were weekends when she didn’t even make the match-day squad and watched the game from the stands.

“It wasn’t an easy task,’’ she says. “It was probably one of the hardest things I’ve actually had to go through. I think I knew going there that it was going to be hard to get game time, but I think when you feel in yourself that you’re performing and doing well, but you aren’t getting those rewards it is really hard to go ‘what else can I do to perform?’’’

The answer was to go on loan to another Swedish club, Vittsjo, where she became a regular and her game kicked into gear.

In the background to all this was the looming World Cup. Not just any World Cup, but one to be held in Australia. An event so big that even the superstar Kerr, who has collected just about every accolade available, says it will be a high point of her career.

“When I first started in the Matildas, we could barely get a home Matildas friendly match and now we’re going to be hosting the biggest tournament in women’s football,” Kerr said last month.

When Grant wasn’t playing in Sweden, she did have moments’ when she worried about making the World Cup squad but says coach Tony Gustavsson always gave her confidence and was happy with her progress.

Gustavsson gave Grant her Australian debut in a forgettable match for Australia. In September 2021, Australia surprisingly lost 3-2 to Ireland, their opening World Cup opponents, but playing the game meant Grant was now officially a Matilda. She concedes it takes a while to adjust to the demands of international football, in part because “you don’t want to make a mistake and let the country down’’.

With more opportunities comes a greater degree of comfort and Grant has now played 18 times for her country and scored her first goal earlier this year in a win against England.

Grant got a head to a Kerr cross and after a deflection off an English defender, the ball trundled over the line. It was a defining moment for her.

“I think seeing how happy everyone was for me just made me feel really part of the team and that I do belong there,’’ she says.

Now she has the chance to show her skills on the biggest stage of all. Her old coach Karlovic says she is ready to go.

“Charli definitely brings a lot of energy and intensity to their game,’’ he says.

“The ability to get forward from a defensive position and the ability to get back, her physical attributes, unbelievable. She can play at high tempo for a long period of time.’’

Charli Grant at home. Picture: Ann Odong/Football Australia

South Australian Matilda Charli Grant. Picture: Ann Odong/Football Australia

Grant thinks of a home World Cup as a “once-in-a-lifetime’’ opportunity, not only for herself, but for her sport and the thousands of little girls it will inspire to play the game.

At places such as Emmaus primary school where she took her first steps on to a football pitch.

“Someone sent me a photo from the primary school I went to and now they’ve got a full girls’ team,’’ she says.

“So it’s really nice to see how much it’s grown over time. It was fun playing with the boys but it just gives more opportunities for younger girls to play.’’