‘People’s team’ are leaving fans behind

Matildas captain Sam Kerr is expected to climb off the canvas and attempt to rescue Australia in Monday’s desperate World Cup match against Canada.

Injured skipper Sam Kerr applauds fans after Australia’s loss to Nigeria in Brisbane. Picture: Getty Images.

Remember Nathan Lyon hobbling out to bat against England with a torn calf? Cooper Cronk defying medical opinion and logic to win a NRL grand final with a broken shoulderblade? Steve Waugh guiding Australia to victory at The Oval on one leg?

Andrew Johns leading Newcastle to a premiership after the back page of Sydney’s largest-selling newspaper warned he could die from his punctured lung? Remember Captain Edward Smith in the waters of the North Atlantic in 1912?

Matildas captain Sam Kerr is expected to climb off the canvas and attempt to rescue Australia in Monday’s desperate World Cup match against Canada. Semi-fit, half-fit, barely fit, unfit, who cares? A wounded Kerr is a better athlete than half this tournament’s players put together.

It was 10.14pm on a sorry old Thursday evening in Brisbane, with ground staff mopping up little girls’ tears from the 3-2 defeat to Nigeria, when Kerr walked up the players’ tunnel, stuffed her hands in her pockets, took a deep breath and sighed.

Well she might. It’s now or potentially never for the skipper.

How pointless it would be for the Matildas to depart their World Cup without the resident rock star, the woman on all the billboards and posters, probably the best player on the planet, playing a single minute. She’s yet to get out of her trakky daks. You wouldn’t host Woodstock without at least trying to get Janis Joplin on stage. One functional leg will be enough for Kerr to make an impact. Sit her on a chair if you have to.

Unless her calf is so excruciatingly painful she cannot stand upright, she has to play. You know it, I know it, the ball kids know it, the pizza delivery guys know it. Besieged coach Tony Gustavsson knows it. His job depends on it. More on him in a sec. Kerr knows it, too, and Gustavsson expects his famously competitive, ambitious, rugged, combative and headstrong leader to insist on selection. Fitness tests be damned.

“Of course. Of course she will,” Gustavsson said of Kerr demanding a role. “That is going to be her mindset. That’s what I love with Sam. Like, she’s going to give anything she can to be out there. I know that. She’ll want to be out there. She deserves to be out there. And if she can be out there, she will be out there.

“We just need to plan the plan for 90 minutes, together, if she’s available. I’m saying ‘if’ now. If she’s available, we just need to come up with a plan together. Together with the staff. Together with Sam. To see what’s the best way to maximise the potential minutes that she has going into this game – if she’s available.”

Australia’s coach Tony Gustavsson has worrying few days ahead. Picture: Getty Images.

Gustavsson began the World Cup by inviting everyone along for the ride. Every young ’un in Australia, every golden oldie, every boy, every girl, every man, every dog, every Tom, every Dick, every Harry and all their better halves.

Talk of the people’s team reminded me of Roger Federer, the people’s champion, and how he treated them.

Federer realised early that folks were for him. He appreciated the support. Wanted to reciprocate. Repay the favour. To get you properly involved, for two decades he talked about his life, talked about his tournaments, talked about his missus, talked about Rafa, talked about bloody Novak, talked about his kids, talked about his occasionally shonky forehand, talked about the only bloke he couldn’t beat, Father Time, and talked about his matches until he was Plexicushion blue in the face.

He talked about his highs and he was open about his lows. He talked about his strengths and admitted to his vulnerabilities.

Basically no topic was taboo. He occasionally Federer talked so much we had to say OK, Roger, that’s enough.

It was 2016 when the people’s champ sustained an injury that required surgery. This was the knee problem that hounded him for the rest of his career.

In any sport, anywhere in the world, the obvious question to the injured is, how’d it happen? It’s never a big deal. What’s there to hide? I’ve never seen an NRL coach or player, AFL coach or player, Test cricket coach or player, Wallabies coach or player, golfer, swimmer, dart player, sprinter, high-jumper or footballer dodge the question. Because injuries are factual.

Something happened, so what happened? Only the most embarrassing or controversial incident might be covered up.

Federer’s mishap could have fallen into this category. It wasn’t exactly a hardcore way to hurt yourself. He spilt the beans anyway, admitting it was in the rigorous act of running a bath for his twin daughters that he heard a click in his left knee. It blew up like a Ballon d’Or. The kiddies finished up in the tub and one of the most popular athletes in history ended up having arthroscopic surgery to repair torn cartilage.

“It was a very simple movement, probably a movement I’ve done a million times in my life,” he said. “I didn’t think much of it when it did happen.”

Federer’s openness entrenched his popularity. Earned him respect.

Which was what came to mind when Gustavsson was playing secret squirrel before the loss to Nigeria in Brisbane. No talkies on topics the fans wanted to know about. All the important questions were taboo. Nearly two weeks after Kerr was hurt, we don’t know how it happened. You’d expect your most valuable player was in cotton wool just 48 hours before kick-off. If not, why not? No talkies. Everything was to be kept “internal,” Gustavsson said. Which alienated fans. What happened to the ride?

Then came the concussions that wiped out two more players after another “high-intensity” match simulation. That’s when my email and phone went into meltdown. One immensely intelligent and rarely flustered friend wrote before the Nigeria defeat, “Will I CANNOT BEAR the situation with the Matildas at training. How can this be happening? What on earth is going on? IT’S DOING MY HEAD IN. Why are there no answers to all these mysterious injuries? Are some tough questions being asked of the Matildas management? It’s kind of embarrassing and ridiculous. Please help me. Obviously I care too much.”

Her email spoke for all. How many stars were in the Brisbane sky on Thursday night? That’s how many texts I received along the same lines. And the Matildas hadn’t even lost yet. Let’s use this example from, oh, my mum: “If Matildas lose tonight, it will be the coach’s fault for making them train too hard. What was he thinking? And he destroyed Sam.”

Point being, mates and mums have become dismayed. They want the ride to be more than 90 minutes on game nights. If something happened at training, they want to know what happened at training. Kerr’s injury was the biggest sports yarn of the week, featuring the most talk-about athlete in Australia, and the captain of the most popular team in the country, and left millions of supporters, and their messengers in the media asking, what happened? Was Kerr running, jumping, cartwheeling, backflipping, running a bath when she hurt herself? We don’t know. The ride isn’t as intimate as we thought.

I thought Gustavsson’s response to the concussions was truly unusual. Again the whole thing was treated on a need-to-know basis, and it was decided the Australian sporting public didn’t warrant being told a thing. At 11.02am on Wednesday, a Football Australia media release said, “CommBank forward Mary Fowler and defender Aivi Luik will be unavailable for Thursday night’s clash with Nigeria (27 July) with both players having been ruled out after sustaining mild concussions in separate incidents at training on Tuesday, 25 July 2023.”

What the heck happened? How can two players be concussed so close to a World Cup game? The people’s team aren’t entirely forthcoming with the people. Sensitivities are evident. When Gustavsson was about to do his pre-match FIFA press conference in Brisbane, a Football Australia spokesperson told the gathering of international media that “out of respect” for Kerr’s wishes, questions should focus on the team taking the field. “One or two” questions were acceptable on the most popular athlete in Australia we were told, before “everyone looked forward to Nigeria.”

Odd. A press conference without Kerr was being told that Kerr didn’t want the press conference to be about her. In the end, there wasn’t much to look forward to against Nigeria. When the Matildas arrive in Melbourne on Sunday, just about every question, every interview, every observation, every rumour and every speculation will be about the captain. Perhaps she’s about to be an incredibly courageous one. Even Lyon slogged a boundary at Lord’s. Failing that, even Captain Smith preferred to go with the ship.