Is Matildas and W-League star Steph Catley the busiest footballer on the planet?

STEPH Catley has had four days off in 12 months. The W-League star has racked up an incredible 4280 minutes of game time as she splits her career between the US and Australia.

STEPH Catley has had four days off in 12 months.

On Monday it will be one year since the 2016-17 W-League season started.

Since then the star fullback has played 48 games — 24 for Orlando Pride, 15 for Melbourne City and nine for the Matildas — and a total of 4280 minutes.

How many flights? Catley has lost count.

City star Steph Catley with the W-League trophy.

“But I do feel like I’ve nailed the America-to-Australia, Australia-to-America flights,” she says.

“You watch one movie, have a meal, go to sleep and if you can get a good sleep then you can wake up, have another meal, watch another movie and it’s not too bad.

“I do get sick of flying sometimes, but you always end up somewhere cool when you get off the plane, so you can’t really complain.”

Taking it back a step further, to Australia’s quarterfinal run at the 2016 Olympics in Brazil, it has been a whirlwind 15 months for Catley and her Matildas teammates, most of whom have wracked up a similar amount of game time.

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There’s been the 2016-17 W-League campaign which, for Catley’s City, ended in championship success for the second season running, followed by the Algarve Cup in Portugal in March where the Matildas won twice and lost twice, finishing fourth.

After that it was over to America where Catley plays in the National Women’s Soccer League for Orlando with current City teammate Alana Kennedy and now Melbourne Victory defender Laura Alleway, who she will meet in tomorrow’s derby at AAMI Park.

The season in the States ended in semi-final defeat to Portland on October 7, but spliced in throughout were more Matildas commitments — the now famous Tournament of Nations in July-August where the Australians spanked the USA, Japan and Brazil, followed by friendlies against Brazil played in front of huge crowds in Penrith and Newcastle in September.

Catley barely skipped a beat through it all.

The 23-year-old played every second of all nine Matildas games, she missed just one game of Orlando’s season and missed, literally, one minute of City’s 2016-17 season as she was a 93rd minute substitute in Round 1.

And the only block of days off where she did absolutely no training were when she returned home from Orlando last month.

“Four days I had off,” she said. “And on my first day back here the coach, PK (Patrick Kisnorbo), made me run the beep test.”

Catley suffered a stress fracture in her foot at the Olympics, a sure sign “that my body was saying ‘you’ve done a bit too much’”.

But does the Victorian wish she’d get more of a break?

“I think it’s part and parcel of being a footballer,” she said.

“I don’t like to have too much of a block of time off because, if you lose any edge, it’s so hard to get it back.

Steph Catley makes a run against Brazil.

“Eventually I will need to give myself a big block of time so I don’t burn out. But at the moment, jumping to the American league to the Australian league, that’s just the way it has to be.

“Until the W-League becomes fully professional and a longer league then most of the girls will be bouncing back and forth because that’s just what you’ve got to do.”

Read on to get Catley’s thoughts on each of the big events from the past 15 months.

BECOMING AN OLYMPIAN

“It’s different in terms of football because it’s not just in Rio, it’s all over, so you’re seeing different parts of Brazil which is pretty cool.

“It was an amazing environment and obviously the Olympics is something that everyone is interested in, the entire world is watching. We ended up in the village for the last couple of weeks so that was an amazing experience being around different athletes from different sports.

“The most famous person, for me that I saw, was Clay Thompson, the basketballer for Golden State Warriors. He was playing table tennis in the Australian section with some of the other basketball boys.

“I didn’t chat to him, I got a little bit nervous. He was playing so I didn’t want to interrupt him. But I did have a bit of a stalker-watch. That was very cool.”

WINNING BACK-TO-BACK W-LEAGUE TITLES

“There was something special about it in that we were at such a low midway through the season.

“We were still playing good football but we weren’t clicking, we weren’t finishing our good play, it was a really frustrating time.

Steph Catley has enjoyed W-League success with Melbourne City.

“Obviously we were able to turn that around, we had PK come in at the right time and put a few things in place and were able to turn things around and it really was the best feeling in the world when we won in Perth because we knew how hard we’d worked and where we’d come from.”

THE ALGARVE CUP

“I feel like that was a really positive tournament for us. We really focused on the performances and not the results.

“After every game we had line meetings, forwards, midfielders, defenders, and we pored over statistics, footage, analysis.

“I think that was a really key moment in terms of establishing where we are now. We really went into the nitty gritty of how we play and really picked stuff up in that tournament that is flourishing now.”

PLAYING IN AMERICA

“The reason I’ve been to America so much — this was my fourth year — is because it marries up so well with playing in the W-League.

“I think it’s one of, if not the, best leagues in the world in terms of how competitive it is. All of the teams across the entire league can win on any given day and I think that’s the cool thing.

“You go to places in Europe like France where you’ve got three or four amazing teams and then the rest struggle to keep up.

Catley has been an integral part of the Matildas’ success.

“So the league itself is so competitive and you know you have to be 100 per cent every game otherwise you’re going to get found out.

“There are a lot of good players over there. I was playing with Marta this year, she’s one of the best players in the world, that was an amazing experience.

“You can latch on to different players with so much experience, learn from them.”

THE TOURNAMENT OF NATIONS

“It was incredible. I thought we were making steps in the Algarve Cup but then it all came together in that tournament.

“It was something brewing, that we were starting to become such a strong team. Individually everyone was starting to get on top of their game, be it in the US or in the W-League, I felt that most of the girls in the national team set up were in really good form.

“By the time we got there, coming up against America, everyone was just so confident going into that game. We really felt we could win.

“That hasn’t been there before going into games against USA. We’ve always thought, ‘we’ve never beaten them before, maybe we can win’ whereas for that game we truly felt we could. There was a change in mentality. We backed our game plan and every individual player that was on the field.

“That really set up our tournament, winning against the US in the first game. Obviously then the last two games against Japan and Brazil were really, really good too.

“But then again, having said that, I don’t think we were entirely happy with how we played at the same time. Staj (coach Alen Stajcic) is the first one to say ‘what was wrong’ with the game and ‘how can we be better’.

“There’s a lot of things we can do a lot, lot better, we all agree with that, so there’s a long way to go, which is good.”

THE FRIENDLIES IN SYDNEY

“It was ridiculous. I’ve never seen anything like it. We’ve had home games before but it hasn’t been publicised anything like this game.

“By the time we landed it was in the papers every single day, it was on the news, on the radio. Even when I was in Orlando mum was sending me stuff saying ‘do you know how many tickets have been sold?’ Everyone was so excited.

“I think it was the perfect time to have home games on the back of what we did at Tournament of Nations. It was the first time that we’d done something great and then followed it up with games at home with everyone back together again.

“It was incredible to be a part of. I remember walking out for the national anthem for the game in Penrith and truly thinking ‘this is unbelievable’. I had shivers down my spine. There were people everywhere. I felt like it was a real coming of age moment.”

W-LEAGUE DERBY

MELBOURNE CITY v MELBOURNE VICTORY

AAMI Park

Friday, 5.20pm

Live on Fox Sports

A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF STEPH CATLEY

OCT ‘16 — FEB ‘17: Melbourne City (W-League, AUS)

FEB-MAR: Matildas camp + Algarve Cup (Portugal)

MAR-JUL: Orlando Pride (National Women’s Soccer League, USA)

JUL-AUG: Matildas, Tournament of Nations (USA)

AUG-SEP: Orlando

SEP: Matildas, friendlies v Brazil (Penrith, Newcastle)

SEP-OCT: Orlando

OCT-: Melbourne City

GAME TIME

MELBOURNE CITY

2016-17: 14 games, 1260 mins (won grand final)

2017-18: 1 game, 90 mins

ORLANDO PRIDE

2017: 24 games, 2120 mins (lost in semi-final)

MATILDAS

2017: 9 games, 810 mins (won Tournament of Nations, fourth in Algarve Cup)

TOTAL: 48 games, 4280 mins.