The truth about Sam Kerr’s World Cup injury secret and how the furore unfolded for Matildas
The Matildas kept Sam Kerr’s injury bombshell a secret right until the moment it had to be disclosed. ADAM PEACOCK reveals exactly what happened,
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In a time not that long ago, but long enough for the immediacy of social media not to be a factor, Australia’s most famous footballer was left out of the biggest game in Australian football history.
Harry Kewell, 2005. The Uruguay game which would get the Socceroos to a first World Cup in 32 years.
Kewell was binned to the bench the night before the defining second leg in Sydney. Uruguay had plans to deal with Kewell.
Plans made redundant, at the start at least, thanks to Guus Hiddink’s brutal selection call.
The crowd at a packed Stadium Australia was shocked when Kewell’s name was read out as a substitute.
Forward 18 years, at an actual World Cup, and blank stares at phones greeted Sam Kerr’s injury news. The best kept secret at the worst possible time.
A secret which needed to stay in-house, because that’s how the world spins in the planet’s biggest sport.
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Football is a game for the lungs and the brain.
Physical output is matched in importance by the need to think your way past an opponent. Every piece of tactical information is gold dust to a manager, who by the time the whistle sounds has to relinquish control over to his players, trusting them to execute with clear minds while the heart beats heavily.
Much like an exclusive in a newspaper held until the time to publish, or a poker player with pocket aces, secrets are an advantage.
Which is why no one in the world of football, from kit staff to the great management minds at the top of the sport’s pyramid, would have any kind of issue with what Tony Gustavsson got away with in the lead-up to Kerr’s omission.
The Matildas didn’t lie ahead of the announcement that Kerr was out. They just didn’t spill the truth.
World Cup protocols worked in Gustavsson’s favour in the 24 hours before the team sheet was due at 6.30pm on Thursday night.
The Matildas trained in Brisbane on Wednesday morning, with only the first 15 minutes open to the media. When those 15 minutes are up, the media is taken to the press centre, out of view of the pitch. The fences that line the training ground are covered. If you want to keep a secret, it’s the perfect place to do it. The last session is traditionally a short session, no more than 45 minutes, with bursts of maximum intensity.
It was during this period that Kerr’s calf pinged.
The team then travelled to Sydney on a charter flight, again shepherded from prying eyes. Kerr had scans to assess the severity. Before the results came back with the full details, Kerr and Gustavsson fronted the media, where they played a magnificent game of bluff.
Holding pocket twos, the pair acted like they had a couple of aces. But they didn’t lie.
Gustavsson was asked directly by CODE Sports about who was available.
“Tony, the fitness updates … and probably don’t expect a straight answer here, but do you know your XI?”
“I do,” Gustavsson smiled.
“Not only do we know the starting XI but the thoughts in terms of game changers and a finishing XI.
“In terms of fitness updates, I can’t reveal that at this time. I know where we’re at but I can’t at this time give away too much, I keep it close to my chest.”
That was three hours before the scans came back confirming that Kerr would be out for not only the Ireland opener, but next week’s game against Nigeria. The secret had to stay within.
Ireland, for sure, had a plan to deal with Kerr. Yet even as the Matildas arrived at Stadium Australia on Thursday at 6.25pm, the secret was still holding.
The team was submitted to FIFA by the 6.30pm cut-off. At this stage, Gustavsson did an interview with the host broadcast TV, which gets made available to the rights holders; and still he made no reference to Kerr’s injury, because he didn’t have to.
FIFA made the teams public at 7pm, an hour before kick-off. Ireland found out just before that, when the team sheet was signed off.
This writer missed the story, with everyone else. It would have been a magnificent exclusive, yet secrets are so well kept in the closed-off ecosystem of a World Cup, where every edge matters.
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Every minute that Ireland didn’t know about Kerr was a tiny little advantage amid the huge disadvantage of being without the best striker in the world.
Every moment is a moment less for Ireland to reconsider plans.
Which in the end, may have mattered, or maybe not. The game got chaotic in the end, well off the tactical rails that Gustavsson and his team had planned.
The lack of Kerr did diminish the Matildas’ ability to unlock the Irish block set up to funnel the Australian attack into wide areas. Without Kerr’s aerial threat, the Matildas tried to play the ball more across the deck. Caitlin Foord and Mary Fowler, through no fault of their own, struggled to keep clear air on the ball.
Keeping Kerr’s injury a secret didn’t win the Matildas the game, but neither did it hurt.
Now the world knows about it, the next fortnight will become one big Sam Kerr injury progress report.
She was in obvious physical and emotional distress on Thursday night, in tears as the teams walked out and unable to celebrate Steph Catley’s penalty with complete freedom, hopping on one leg. Even those with a heart of stone would feel sympathy, somewhat lost in the hullabaloo of keeping secrets.
Kerr is already out of the Nigeria game next Thursday in Brisbane. The Canada game, 10 days away in Melbourne, is the target. An ambitious one given calf injuries are so fickle.
Which leads us to Tony G’s next trick. How do you win a World Cup, possibly without Sam Kerr?
That’s not a secret. It’s an unanswerable question.
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