FIFA World Cup 2023: Alanna Kennedy promises Matildas will put on a show

Alanna Kennedy says winning the right to co-host the World Cup is a chance for the Matildas to fulfil their potential.

Matildas defender Alanna Kennedy in Sydney after the World Cup was awarded to Australia and New Zealand. Picture: John Feder

Midnight. Alanna Kennedy has just taken a squiz at the Matildas-themed light show on the sails of the Opera House. The one in which Sam Kerr is doing a backflip over the Harbour. Kerr’s image may collapse and fall into the drink if the Zoom call from Zurich puts another dagger into the heart of Australian football.

Kennedy arrives at the Football Federation Australia office in Sydney’s CBD. Chairs have been placed a socially acceptable distance apart for the FIFA announcement of hosting rights for the 2023 Women’s World Cup. She’s had not a wink of sleep. Only one will be had before dawn. “So nervous,” she says.

Waiting. Waiting. It’s approaching 2am. Kerr is still suspended, mid-air, everyone is. FIFA boss Gianni Infantino is threatening to talk longer than Rob Oakeshott in his hung-parliament speech of 2010. Finally, Infantino says, “I can announce the host country …” and Kennedy’s heart stops cold. Host country? Singular? Only one of the bids is a stand-alone. Colombia. Infantino says, “ … of the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023, which will be Australia New Zealand.”

Perhaps Infantino thinks Australia New Zealand is one country. (It wouldn’t be a bad one.) Kennedy leaps from her seat, hugging every Matilda she can get her hands on; the photos and video will be memorable for the pure and absolute joy on her face, in her eyes, in the words she will give us the following morning. What an event Australia New Zealand has been granted, the biggest on these shores since the 2000 Olympics. The global audience will exceed a billion. “So relieved,” she says now. “So tired! So excited.”

Kennedy is leaning against a goalpost so she doesn’t nod off. It’s been a big and long night for Australian sport, for Australian football, for women’s sport, for women’s football. It is heady stuff. “The winning country … singular … I heard that, too!” Kennedy laughs. “My heart stopped when he said that. I was trying so hard to be positive. I thought, maybe he doesn’t want to give away the announcement by saying countries, plural. But in that split-second, that word really stood out. Country. You mean, one country? I had that thought of, oh, no! It’s not us! We’re two countries! The whole night felt like an eternity. But then he finished his sentence and it was … two countries! So many emotions. So elating.”

 

We’ve seen the photos by now. The videos. Put that moment into words for us. “I don’t know how to,” she says. “Just pure excitement. Maybe shock. It’s kind of too good to be true for us, you know? That split second of adrenaline and excitement that went through my body, I have never experienced anything like that in my life off the field. You can see the emotion. I’ve never done a vertical leap like that before! An incredible moment for all of us. For the Matildas, for anyone who loves football, and anyone who loves sport, it’s a dream come true. We feel like we’ve underperformed in the last few big tournaments with the potential that we have. This will give us so much motivation to get it right. For ourselves. For everyone who gives us such incredible support.”

The Rio Olympics ended in utter heartbreak … a loss in a marathon penalty shootout. Last year’s World Cup was the same … a loss in a wickedly quick shootout.

“I imagine there will be all the questions now of, do you feel pressure because you’ll be playing at home?” Kennedy says. “Honestly, I think this is the sort of situation in which we’ll thrive. The Australian public has embraced us. We’re so grateful for that. We appreciate that. We get fuelled by that, we want to repay that by performing. We want to perform in front of our friends. Our families. Our country. At the last World Cup, it was just so disappointing to go out the way we did.”

Kennedy says: “We have high expectations every time we play. We know everyone else has their own expectations and hopes. We felt like we let ourselves down last year. We feel a responsibility to do our fans and our supporters proud, too — that’s important to us — so those moments when it goes wrong, we want them back. The next opportunity will be here, and that is incredible. We’ll put on a show. We’re dynamic. We’re exciting to watch. We’re ruthless. I honestly think a home World Cup will take us to new heights.”

The Matildas already have enormous support because of the flair of Sam Kerr and the aggression of Ellie Carpenter and the ruggedness of the towering Kennedy, for starters, and the overall mission to push forward, attack and entertain. Now the World Cup is coming, the bandwagon will be longer, wider and deeper than the Simpson Desert for the ninth-ranked team in the world.

“The reality is that anyone in the top 10 is a team that can win the World Cup,” Kennedy says. “We are definitely one of those teams. It’s a step-by-step, piece-by-piece process when you start moving through a World Cup, but it’s always going to be our aim to win it.”