‘I was a moody wreck’: Kyah Simon back from brink in reshaped Matildas role

Kyah Simon is synonymous with the Matildas. Her right boot took the team to the 2015 World Cup quarter-finals and her 111 appearances put her eighth on the national side’s most-capped players list. It feels, let’s say antonymous, then, for such a central figure to be preparing for a bit-part role at her home World Cup in Australia.

Yet the 32-year-old forward is preparing to spend the tournament on the bench, waiting to be called upon to recast a delicately balanced game in the Matildas’ favour. This is not a form issue – Simon was in fine fettle as recently as the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 – it is one of injury. An ACL tear, suffered while playing for Tottenham last October, has, on her worst days, had her contemplating retirement.

It is something of a miracle she was selected as part of the final 23 for her third World Cup, and even now is not 100 per cent, picked by coach Tony Gustavsson based not on her physical condition right now but where it might be in a month when, perhaps, Australia have to play England or Denmark in the round of 16. A “game-changing” substitute, he called her, and she is OK with that if it means playing.

“My journey’s been so different leading into this World Cup to every other player in this squad because I’m coming off a longer-term injury,” Simon says. “I haven’t got a whole season under my belt, and the discussion with Tony was that maybe I will have a different role in this team for this tournament.

Kyah Simon has made a miracle comeback from an ACL tear to slip into Australia’s World Cup squad.Credit: Getty

“It’s different from the [Tokyo] Olympics when I was a starter, and I said to him that I’d much prefer to be in the squad and have that role rather than wanting to be a starter and missing out.

“Even when Tony told me I was in the squad I said, ‘I’m not expecting a free ticket, and I don’t expect a free ticket for what I’ve done in the past at World Cups and goals I’ve scored, or the type of player that I am. I want to be there because I want to feel like I deserve to be there’.”

The “massive relief” when Simon got the news manifested in tears, and then a renewed motivation to ensure she is fit to remain on the roster by the time the tournament starts on July 20 – Gustavsson has until the day before Australia’s match against the Republic of Ireland to withdraw players through injury or illness.

Before that, though, there were times during the months of lonely and largely unrewarding rehabilitation when she wondered: what was the point?

“I had doubts in my mind throughout that time,” says Simon, who also missed the 2019 World Cup in France because of injury. “Why do I want to play football? Why do I want to put myself through this?

“Emotionally, I was a moody wreck some days and then other days I’d be on top of the world because I had small wins in my rehab.

“So I really tried to stay present and not even think about the World Cup. The moment I let myself slip too far down the track – even if it was a few days, a week, a month, whatever -- I lost that time in that day.”

It comes as Football Australia awaits a decision from FIFA on whether it will allow Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags to be displayed at stadia during the World Cup.

Simon, an Anaiwan woman and member of FA’s National Indigenous Advisory Group, was unwilling to comment directly on the progress of the talks, which are still under way.

But she did say she was proud of her country’s First Nations people, including teammate Lydia Williams, who were represented on the international stage when the Matildas posed with the Aboriginal flag in Japan before their Olympics opener against New Zealand.

“Every major tournament, my family’s come along and brought their own Aboriginal flag, and for me that’s a part of my history and my culture,” she says. “It’s something that’s close to home for me.

“There’s no better place than being here on home soil in Australia to display our Indigenous First Nations culture and heritage, and I’m hoping people who come from abroad can see that rich culture that we do have here and also be educated along the way.”

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