Disjointed Matildas stare down curse of hosting World Cup
With or without Sam Kerr, the Matildas will need to ride their luck and buck a curiosity, or curse, of sporting history to win the World Cup.
Steph Catley knocked in the penalty like Eddie Charlton was slotting a red into the top corner pocket. She took off on the sort of wild celebratory sprint that was never part of Charlton’s routine.
He’d merely raise a nonchalant eyebrow at his routine successes but when Catley and her Matildas raised the roof in their moment of triumph, they were acknowledging their trembling relief at finding the net without the ball coming from the boot of Sam Kerr.
It was a fortuitous penalty. A bit of pot luck. The Australians moved back to the pack without their captain. The 1-0 win over Ireland was hard-fought and unconvincing against a rough and tough side that feared no-one once Kerr was consigned to sucking on her water bottle in the dugout.
I’m not sure about the assumption she will return for game three against Olympic champions Canada. Calf injuries are a bugger of a thing. With or without her, the Matildas will need to ride their luck and buck a curiosity, or curse, of sporting history to win the World Cup.
The tournament is littered with home nations who begin like the Matildas did – full house, millions of folks on the bandwagon, everyone dreaming their little dream of victory – only for things to spear off the side of the cue.
In men’s World Cups dating back to 1930, only six hosts have won it: Uruguay in 1930, Italy in 1934, England in 1966, West Germany in 1974, Argentina in 1978 and France in 1998. In the eight women’s events, only the United States in 1999 have successfully toiled on home soil.
Still, so far, so good for the Matildas. Well, sort of. Watching the Matildas without Kerr was like watching The Divinyls without Chrissy Amphlett, if your memory stretches back so far.
It felt like Winx had been scratched from a Cox Plate. Different vibe, different side. No chewy on Catley’s boot when the stand-in skipper curled in the matchwinner to defeat the Irish a day after she learned that Kerr was unavailable – an absence kept quiet so the foe wouldn’t know about it until shortly before kick-off, throwing their defensive plans into the skip bins out the back of Stadium Australia.
“It was tough. I think it was probably one of the most heartbreaking moments of my career,” Catley said of Kerr’s injury. “Sam’s one of the best players in the world. She’s our spiritual leader. She means so much to this team. So to have her go down a day before a moment like this was pretty awful. But I think as a team it added something to us. It added a fire, it added a little bit of extra fight.”
Catley added: “I think everyone looked at it and said ‘Well, I’ve got to step up now because we don’t have Sam’. We spoke about that and we did that really well. And Sam’s still around, you know, she’s still got an effect on the team. She’s in every meeting. She’s in there at halftime talking to everyone. She’s doing the pre-game talk. She’s Sam and she’s still with us, so we’ll do everything we can to get as far as we can and then hopefully we see Sam Kerr later on.”
Hmm. Maybe. If you’ve experienced any level of calf strain, you know it can stick around for weeks and then months. Catley received two promotions when Kerr was demoted to the dugout. The captain’s armband was hers; so too penalty duties. A suffocating and excruciating tension filled Stadium Australia while she eyed off the top left corner while trying to con the goalkeeper into thinking she was going low and right.
The Matildas were stuck in a dogfight and the longer the night wore on, the greater the possibility of a disastrous defeat or deflating draw. World No.6 Canada is expected to progress through the group with one other side.
Failing to beat Ireland would have seriously complicated matters for the Matildas. Could’ve been snookered.
“I was on pens tonight,” Catley said. “I’m sort of second in line to take pens if Sam, for whatever reason, doesn’t want to take it. I had a feeling I was going to get one. I don’t know why. When I woke up this morning, I was like, ‘I feel like I’m going to take a pen today.’ When it happened, I just tried to relax. I like taking set pieces, so I just picked a spot, kept thinking about it, took a deep breath and then just hit it. Hit it where I wanted to hit it. Luckily it went in.”
The headiness of Catley’s goal came amid an occasionally disjointed performance.
“A few nervy moments, which is natural,” Catley said. “This is the biggest moment of a lot of our careers. We expected some nervy, sloppy moments, and we had them. But to get over the line, to keep a clean sheet and to fight the way we did, it sets us up really well.”
Pot luck for the Australians. Saved by a penalty. They played with heart but looked vulnerable without Kerr. No-one was more relieved than coach Tony Gustavsson. While keeping mum on Cup eve about her predicament – no injury concerns here, folks – he offered the following prediction.
If the Matildas beat Ireland, he would be among the most popular blokes in the land. If they lost, we might be paying for his taxi to the airport.
“Sam was very clear when she brought the team together and said, ‘This is not about me. This is about you’,” Gustavsson said. “She wanted to be focused on the team and for the players to be able to do that in that devastating moment for her personally says a lot about her as a captain for this team.
“Of course it’s intense but that’s tournament football. This game was always going to be tough. We’ve seen Ireland against top teams before, and all the teams that are here are going to put up a fight. Look at New Zealand beating Norway in Auckland. Tournament football is about always finding a way to win. There’s been a lot of challenges thrown at this team in the last 24 hours. Everyone can beat everyone.”
Australia faces Nigeria in Brisbane on Thursday.
Asked about the curiosity, or curse, of hosts invariably bombing out at World Cups, Gustavsson said: “Oh, that’s a big question. A good one. Might be multiple reasons but what we do know in this tournament is that there’s a lot of teams that can win the tournament.
“If you look at the quality of the teams, look at the Euros last year (won by England), how tight it was and how many extremely good teams there are.
“You need to get it right on the day. Play to your ability. Get a goalkeeper that’s having the tournament of her life.
“Get a goal scorer that scores the most goals. Get some consistency in the line-up in terms of player availability.
“All those sorts of things. And then probably you reference a little bit the mental side of things. Playing on home soil and how they handle that.
“Whether they see it as pressure or belief and support. That’s something we’ve talked a lot about.
“We feel the belief and support much more so than feeling the pressure.”
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