Penalty shootouts are fastidiously prepared long before they arrive. Every player picks their target, hammering in practice shots again and again until the precise movement is etched into their muscle fibres. But with her name 10th on the list of 11 Matildas penalty-takers, Cortnee Vine did not really think she would have to step up.
Yet after 19 penalty kicks and the shootout score at 6-6, Australia’s eyes turned to the 25-year-old as she dutifully made her way to the spot. Brow furrowed in focus, Vine’s calm belied the fact this was her first World Cup and first penalty shot for the national team. She said afterwards she could not hear the 49,461-strong crowd, that she was able to block it out and focus on the task at hand.
“In that moment, I just thought in my head, ‘I know what way I’m going, we just need to hit it, let’s just hit it’, and we did it,” she said. Low, hard, to the right, just out of reach of French substitute goalkeeper Solène Durand.
Vine said “we”, and her choice of words reflects a young player who recently felt out of place on the international stage. Surely now, after sending the nation into total delirium and her team into the World Cup semi-finals for the first time in their history, Vine is starting to believe she is right where she belongs.
“I’m still having ups and downs,” she admitted after the game, “but I think that’s just a life thing.” Perhaps with time, regardless of how the Matildas’ campaign ends, Vine will see more clearly how confidently she wrote herself into history.
Vine’s game-winning penalty kick capped off an earth-shifting evening for women’s football in Australia and some of the Matildas’ newest faces. The Sydney FC winger made her World Cup debut in the Matildas’ opening game against Ireland but has started the last three from the bench to make room for Mary Fowler. Since her return from concussion, Fowler has become the heart of Australia’s goal scoring, netting one against Canada and stylishly setting up Caitlin Foord against Denmark.
It took the Manchester City striker a little while to get going on Saturday, as France stormed out of the gates, rapidly closing down spaces in midfield and pressing forward. More than once, an error from Fowler upfield resulted in a chance for France. But once the opening attacks had been parried and the Matildas settled, she was everywhere, turning on a dime while surrounded by blue shirts and cutting clean passes through invisible gaps to Foord and Emily van Egmond. Fowler gave France their first scare at the end of the first half, denied in front of an open goal by valiant defending from Elisa De Almeida. There was another chance minutes later. Finally, as the hard-fought match reached the three hour mark, Fowler decisively thumped her penalty kick into the bottom corner, stamping her name on this historic evening.
Coach Tony Gustavsson warned against overhyping a player still at the beginning of her career. But with Fowler running rings around the world’s best players it’s easy for even the coach to forget the forward is just 20 years old. “She plays beyond her years in terms of maturity,” he said. “Her technical skills [are] just one of a kind. Mary has a bright future but I also think we need to be very careful of putting too much pressure on her now. She’s a young player. She should just play freely, do her thing and just be Mary Fowler to 100%. I think we all love it when she is.”
Still buzzing from the win and prolonged minutes on the turf, captain Sam Kerr was similarly profuse in her praise of Fowler. “She’s one of the most amazing players in our team,” Kerr enthused. “She’s 20 years old and she has a head on her like she’s 30 and been around the game for 100 years.”
Australia’s two other World Cup debutants, Clare Hunt and Kyra Cooney-Cross, also struggled early in the first half, but found their feet as the game went on. Hunt’s steeliness in defence was crucial at the end of regulation and extra time as France desperately searched for a goal. Veteran defender Clare Polkinghorne was ready to come on and take a penalty but Gustavsson chose to back 24-year-old Hunt in only her 10th appearance for the national team. Even though Hunt’s penalty was saved, her captain was quick to point out the weight on her shoulders.
Kerr had spoken before the tournament how she wanted this team to create the next “Cathy Freeman moment”. On the world’s biggest stage the new generation of Matildas – whom Kerr calls “the kids” – did not shy away.
“One of my coaches once said ‘it only takes big players to step up and take a penalty’,” Kerr said of Vine, Fowler and Hunt’s heroics against France. “We needed them tonight and they stepped up. [I’m] really proud of them.”
