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 Asian Cup final. 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 2014 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.”
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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.”
