FIFA World Cup 2023: A nation feasts on fruit of the Vine
A young girl scored Sam Kerr’s jersey. Her hysterical reaction brought to mind Beatlemania in the 1960s.
A million voices whispered, good luck. Cortnee Vine scored. Sam Kerr bolted to the festivities. Stacks on the mill. Then Kerr stopped, looked at the sky, where the victory had been written, looked at the French players, looked heartbroken and detached herself from her teammates. She ran to the slaughtered foe. Les Bleues had collapsed as one on the turf as though this was the end of a Shakespearean tragedy and what Vine had really done was plough a dagger into all their exhausted hearts.
The French wept and rolled on the ground at the loss of a penalty shootout. They punched the soil inside Brisbane’s great empire of dirt like the denouement of this extraordinary World Cup quarter-final was just some sort of anti-French conspiracy. They held their stomachs as if the pain was physical. Kerr went up to every single one of them. She offered any consolation she could. A handshake. A hug. A slap on the back to any of the women who were too inconsolable to know she was even there. There were a few of those.
And then Kerr cut loose. She sprinted towards a bank of ebullient supporters. She did a leaping punch of the air like she was in a Toyota commercial. Off to the World Cup semi-finals. Oh, what a feeling. Close to 50,000 Australians were belting out Men at Work’s Down Under at full and thunderous voice. How deep and powerful was the explosion of noise and euphoria when Vine slotted her matchwinning penalty low, to the right and into the promise land of the back of the net? Somewhere in the crowd was Jimmy Barnes. You couldn’t even hear him.
Coach Tony Gustavsson’s first response to Vine getting the Matildas over the line was to turn to the masses. He pointed at the crowd and bellowed, “You! You! You!” He cupped his hands in the shape of a loveheart. When Kerr saw herself on the big screen, she beamed wider than the entrance to Luna Park and gave her verdict. A thumbs up. Top night, eh? Unforgettable scenes. Katrina Gorry tossed her toddler in the air in rapturous joy. (Yep, she caught him.) A young girl in the crowd was thrown a shirt by one of the Matildas players. I didn’t see who the player was. Doesn’t matter. The girl shook and bawled and trembled and danced around like young people did for the Beatles in the 1960s. I hope someone got a photo of that girl in her beautiful hysterics and her new sweat-soaked, VIP, Matildas shirt. Show-and-tell at school on Monday will be ripper.
When bedlam was unabated, when Down Under had been replaced by AC/DC’s You Shook Me All Night Long – the walls were shaking, the earth was quaking – Kerr removed herself again from the revelry. She sat alone where her night had begun. On the bench. She took a deep breath. She took it all in. “Took a moment to myself,” she said. “After the game, everyone was celebrating. We just kept saying, ‘We cannot believe it.’ We’ve grown up together, us girls. We’ve always talked about this and known we can do it. We’ve fallen short before, so I think the fact that we’ve got to a semi-final in a World Cup now, we’re just all so shocked. Oh my god. I just can’t believe it.”
On consoling the inconsolable French after an inconceivably complicated penalty shootout, Kerr said: “They’re a roller coaster. Honestly. Up and down. Pens is just, I hate pens. I wish there was golden goal or something because I just think it’s such a bad way for anyone to lose.”
Oh, what a feeling. Did it not feel like Australia itself did a cartwheel on Saturday night? We’re witnessing a sporting version of Beatlemania. The girl’s delirium brought to mind black-and-white footage of John Lennon and his mates getting Australians into a tizzy in June, 1964. Matildamania was real in Brisbane. Every player joined the crowd in arching their backs and roaring the lines that all Australian teams love at a moment like this. The one where you ask, do you speak-a my language? The bloke just smiles and gives you a Vegemite sandwich. And then you sing with no small amount of pride about coming from a land down under. Where women glow and men plunder.
These women, of course, are doing both. Glowing. Plundering. Their 20-shot penalty shootout was a thriller to top all thrillers. Brisbane had her party dress on for the occasion. What a good sort she is. Blue sky, gorgeous temperature, the Full House sign was up. Boofhead tradies in Broncos shorts and tight-fitting Matildas T-shirts threw down a couple of schooners on Caxton Street and marched into their city’s sporting temple with all the little girls and the mums and the dads and the beautiful nannas and the grumpy grandpas being dragged along to the soccer but enjoying it more than they were letting on.
A 7-6 win on penalties. The Matildas are off to a World Cup semi-final against England. We’re another day closer to a public holiday, thanks to Prime Minister Albo, who has a Matildas shirt of his own, and we’re about to step into 146 years of vicious sporting rivalry. From Bodyline to Jonny Bairstow’s stumping, from WG Grace to the Gatting Ball, it’s revolved around cricket. Here comes football, with a match against the Poms in Sydney. You suspect the sporting gods are writing a heck of a script. The Matildas’ next game is the biggest night in Australian sport since the Matildas’ last game. To quote Mental as Anything, the nips are getting bigger.
While so many Australian sporting teams are respected, admired and supported, the difference with the Matildas is that they are loved. That’s my sense of it. This team is truly loved. My taxi driver to the stadium was knocking off at 4pm so he could be in front of his TV for the 5pm kick-off. He laughed so hard we nearly crashed and then he said, “And I don’t even really like soccer!”
Look at the joint on Saturday night. Green wigs. Gold wigs. Green-and-gold top hats. Yellow shoes. Green jackets. Australian flags worn like Superman capes. Faces, fingernails, and toenails painted in the nation colours. The masses were sort of quiet until Kerr came on in the second half. And then, and then, the atmosphere changed from one moment to the next. She changed everything. All felt electrifying. Quicker. Louder. She lifted the crowd, she lifted her teammates. Before kick-off, she’d spent a good ten minutes watching the big screen, smiling at every flag-waving, hyped-up supporter – especially the tradies. There was something glorious about the prevalence of all those tattooed, bearded, rough-as-guts but good-as-gold tradies in the audience. The people’s team. Next morning in Brisbane, she paused before getting on the team bus, handing her boots to a pair of young giggling sisters.
Beatlemania. Matildamania. All you need is love. Ya-da-da-da-da. During two torturous hours of regulation and extra time, finishing nil-all, the French hadn’t been this unpopular since they were nuclear testing in French Polynesia. The music over the loudspeakers before the shootout was Guns N‘ Roses’ Welcome to The Jungle. Fitting. This would be brutal. Survival of the psychologically fittest. And Luckiest. The crowd erupted like it was the dash for home at the end of a Melbourne Cup. A long dash of hills, valleys, blind spots, desperation, anxiety, fear, hope, cruel tension and unbearable drama. Unbeatable drama. Every human emotion.
Nineteen shots came and went, whizzing by, blocked by the goalkeepers, or beating them, or hitting the post and going in, or hitting the post and missing, or sailing high or wide like it the ball couldn’t handle the pressure and was trying to flee the stadium. Bravo to Tameka Yallop and Ellie Carpenter. The Matildas would lose if they missed their shots. It’s one thing to have a shot to win. You’ve gotta be made of the toughest stuff to hold yourself together when you, and you alone, are the difference between staying alive and shattering the souls of your mates and millions of Australians. They nailed it. And then came the fruit of the Vine. Her goal. A win. Matildamania. Ya-da-da-da.
Arnold experienced more psychological turbulence in the marathon 17-minute shootout than most players do in an entire career. She saved three penalties. She swapped roles and took penalty number five for the Matildas. It could have won the match. Gustavsson could have sworn it was meant to be, right there and then. Here was the hero. He thought that was the moment written across the sky and yet she hit post. Only to make another desperate save to create Vine’s lifeline.
“It was an emotional roller coaster for all of us. It was almost like it was written in the stars when Macca walks up to take the fifth,” he said. “For Macca, missing that penalty and then staying in the game and being that player that wins the game for us, it‘s unheard of. I mean, that mental strength of hers – I think the number one thing is to embrace this historic night and feel that we are united. I know that they’re going to celebrate this one but from tomorrow they’re going to be focused again. They’re extremely professional and they’re on a mission.”
Vine’s body language was remarkable. Out of 11 Matildas players, she was the tenth choice to take a penalty. Which suggested shots from the sport weren’t exactly her forte. She might fall flat on her face. Take an airswing. She marched up like this was a moment she was born for. This was the kick written in the stars. It was Vine who was relegated to the reserves bench in the tinkering following Kerr’s injury. As if being rewarded for accepting her demotion in good grace, she was given the honour of a goal to be never forgotten. A goal that John Aloisi conceded has relegated his own famous penalty to number two on the pecking order.
Fruit of the Vine. No mucking around. She picked her spot. Didn’t blink. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t choke. Goal. Game over. Not a problem in the big, wide, beautiful world. “I just knew where I was going to put my pen,” she said. “In those moments, you just need to be confident in what you‘ve practised. In that moment, I feel like Macca did the job before I had to. She’s the one that saved a penalty and I just had to put it away. It’s something I’d never dreamt of. It’s just crazy that it happened. I did it but I didn’t think I would have to. I didn’t think it was going get to the tenth penalty taker. I was willing to do whatever the team wanted me to do. Tony picked me as 10th, so I stood up.”
Arnold said: “I was so done with it. I was like, ‘Please, please.’ But I couldn’t say too much because I missed mine. I was just praying that she got it in and I was honestly so proud of her, the way she stepped up.“
Gustavsson was nearly as emotional as the girl gripping her new jumper and feverish Matildamania. “The amount of heart and soul and passion that this team showed tonight,” he said. “There‘s different ways of defining success but, for me, success is when you leave it all out there, no matter the result, you play with your heart and give it your best with the crest on your chest. The players did that tonight,” he said. That represents so much more than 90 minutes of football. The honour it shows to the former Matildas, to all the little kids this team will inspire in the next generation, and then seeing the nation unite the way it did …”
He said of Vine: “Imagine standing there in the centre circle as a World Cup debutant and you‘re listed as the tenth taker out of 11 and it goes to that. And then she just walks up and buries that PK (penalty kick) and you look at her body language. It looks like she wasn’t even disturbed by the moment. She just walks up and buries it. It’s just a very, very impressive moment.”
Aloisi was fantastic in commentary. He said of kids around Australia: “They’ll be practising penalty shootouts. And your goalkeepers will be Mackenzie Arnold, how she made those saves, and Cortnee Vine. She was so cool stepping up to win it. You have to remember, after the five penalties, these players here didn’t think they would take a penalty. This was the tenth penalty. Cortnee Vine would have thought, ‘No way am I stepping up to take a penalty. But how cool was she? You don’t see this atmosphere many times. For a team like the Matildas, they’re the most loved team in Australia at the moment. They have been for a while.”
Told his penalty against Uruguay in 2005 was no longer the most famous penalty in Australian football, he beamed: “I’m happy to get relegated! I don’t care. We’re in a semi-final. This is what a World Cup does on home soil. It brings everyone together. Brings the nation together. Everyone is following the Matildas, everyone is behind them.”
Matildamania. It was the highest-rating TV program of the year. Live sites in every capital city went bonkers. A million voices whispered, well done. In the pubs and clubs of Caxton Street, it was stacks on the mill until after midnight. The following day, golden shirts dotted the cafes in the Brisbane CBD. Vine’s surname printed on the back of one. Van Egmond on another. I saw two for Gorry. I saw a big boofy bloke in a Catley on the corner of Mary St and Albert St. About a hundred shirts were for Kerr. All of this is love. Ya-da-da-da-da.
Finally, footage emerged of the girl who scored a jersey. And from whom it came. One of the Australian players had whipped off her shirt near the players tunnel. She stood there unashamedly in her boots, sock, shorts and sports bra, giving the Beatlemania/Matildamania kid the honour of a hug and a chat. The player thanked the girl for her support. She smiled the Luna Park smile and handed over something better than a Vegemite sandwich. It was Kerr. Of course it was. The Matildas captain gave that young lady what she’s giving Australia right now. The shirt off her back.
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