Source :- THE AGE NEWS
Sixteen years before scoring a semi-final winner so wicked her post-match ice bath felt less startling, a 16-year-old Sam Kerr scored in the final of the Matildas’ last big tournament triumph.
Not that she understood the significance at the time. Kerr’s recollection today is that “there was not much going on” in her teenage brain before that 2010 Asian Cup decider against North Korea.
The occasion, in front of 1200 spectators at China’s Chengdu Sports Centre Stadium, did not feel monumental. And she was certainly not foreseeing that Australia’s hard-fought win on penalties would be the last major international trophy she’d hold to this day.
“I had no idea what I was in for,” Kerr said in Perth on Tuesday night, after a 2-1 defeat of reigning champions China booked the Matildas a ticket back to Sydney for Saturday’s Asian Cup decider.
“I think that worked in my favour. I just went out there and played whatever and just had fun, and didn’t realise how big of a deal it was.
“It was probably not until three Asian Cups later, when we hadn’t won anything, that I was like: ‘Oh, that’s actually kind of a big moment’. But I think I was just like, a young kid, and the beauty of being a kid is you have no pressure – you don’t think of those things.
Celebrate good times: Sam Kerr and Caitlin Foord.Credit: Getty Images
“I thought it would happen every other Asian Cup I ever went to. I was just like a little naive, young kid. But hopefully on the weekend I have that mentality: to just go out there and enjoy it, and hopefully score.”
Easier said than done, given Kerr is now 32 and very much aware of what’s at stake when her Matildas meet either Japan or South Korea at Stadium Australia. She has felt its weight too many times over her 136 international appearances.
The near-misses hurt – that semi-final exit from the home 2023 World Cup, the fourth place at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, the unfruitful 2014 and 2018 Asian Cup finals. And there have been misses that were not near at all: the upset quarter-final loss at the 2022 Asian Cup, the group-stage departure from the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Caitlin Foord, Mary Fowler and Ellie Carpenter soak up the moment.Credit: Getty Images
It is a lot of history to carry onto a pitch when success demands staying in the present day. The present minute. The present second.
“I try to, but of course I’m older now and have more worries and stress more,” Kerr said. “So the reality of it is: the more you know, the harder it is to just relax. I’ll try and tap into that, but this is probably the biggest game in most of our careers for the Matildas right now.”
It is indeed. This generation of Matildas have spent their international careers in pursuit of the very thing Kerr didn’t fully realise she had in 2010. To make this final – the first since the 2018 Asian Cup – is as close as many can expect to come before time runs out.
“It’s huge,” said Caitlin Foord, whose assist for Kerr and goal of her own got her player of the match. “It’s massive for us. We’ve been fighting so long to get here, and I just feel like finally it’s paid off.
“We deserve to be there and we deserve to be playing for a trophy because this team, we’ve been so close so many times and have just fallen short – normally at this point. We got [past] it this time, and we’ll give out everything to finally win a trophy together.”
Yes, the World Cup is next year and Brazil awaits in earnest. But right now is beckoning. At home, with momentum, and the grit that has got them here. Despite their imperfect football, and despite a lean preparation period under a new coach.
You wonder how much more headway Joe Montemurro may have made had he been appointed 10 months earlier. If additional time could be the difference against a frighteningly good Japan or an in-form South Korea. But hindsight does not serve a purpose when all the squad can do is play with the freedom of a 16-year-old Kerr who does not yet understand pressure.
And to be fair, you could have been watching that former version of the striker when she scored that goal against China. Set free by Foord to finish on an angle she suspects might be the most acute in her portfolio.
“I watched it back in the ice bath,” Kerr said. “Not really sure how I got it in, honestly. I’ve scored a few goals like that before, actually. Maybe not as tight, but similar. So I felt pretty confident of getting it in, but watching it back, it was pretty tight.
“It feels amazing. I’ve just been walking around being like, ‘I literally can’t believe it’, because it feels like we’ve been talking about it for ages. We’ve been wanting it for so long that it feels a little bit surreal that it’s actually happened, and it means everything. I need 24 hours to decompress.”
Kerr is not fibbing. She is on cloud nine. Refreshingly looser with her language than she’s been in some time. Riffing on questions about whether her goal celebration meant anything (“I’m not that deep”) and hopes for Wednesday night’s other semi-final (“I hope it goes to 120 minutes tomorrow and it’s hot in Sydney”).
A suggestion that her hometown of Perth might have earned the right to host a final is met with: “I would love to stay in Perth. The weather’s great. The beaches are great. We’ve been winning here, so maybe we should bin Sydney off.”
And a query about her ACL comeback journey, how she’s started five games in 17 days and finished all but one. And the battle to get to Tuesday’s full-time whistle.
“I looked up after at the 62nd minute, and I was literally dark,” Kerr said. “I was like, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to make it to the 90th’. I went over to Joe and said ‘Joe, I’m done’. Literally, if there was one more minute, I think I would have fallen over. I couldn’t even celebrate, I was so tired.”
