The Matildas are World Cup semi-finalists for the first time. And they did it after the longest penalty shoot-out a World Cup has ever seen. Here’s how the internet reacted.
Don’t throw off the vibe. Don’t burst the bubble. Don’t change a thing.
A World Cup run is hard to start, harder to build, and harder still to maintain. The faster it gets, and the tighter the track as the tournament narrows, the more easily it can be tripped, toppled, sent whirring off course.
Superstition abounded before this World Cup quarter final against France; match-day rituals were precisely observed, inadvertent jinxes were dodged at all costs, and the Australian starting XI was unchanged for the third game running.
It might have all felt a little too precarious, too good to be true, a twitchy tightrope walk with no net — yes, it might have, if the entire country hadn’t swelled up behind this Matildas team and its cause, a huge glossy wave of buttressing support.
Newspapers were plastered with Sam Kerr’s visage, and the doors of entire arenas were flung open to televise the game; never has a sporting campaign washed over the full breadth of the country like this, or been soaked up with such joy.
Caxton St was again sloshing with green and gold.
Final prayers were said.
The match kicked off.
A cagey opening, neither team pressing too furiously, or committing too much in attack.
The first chance of the match saw Kadidiatou Diani prey on a Kennedy miskick, sliced into the air, with the French striker spanking a shot wide; she had been dragged back too, Kennedy lucky not to be booked.
A pair of France corners featuring the six-foot-three Wendie Renard was an horrific dance with doom, the second resulting in a one of the misses of the tournament, a point blank shot flicked over the bar by Maëlle Lakrar.
France were allowing Hunt and Kennedy to pass between themselves, but were swarming when the next, riskier pass needed to be made into midfield — it was uncomfortable viewing for the Aussie faithful.
The Matildas were vigorous in the tackle, running hard, but finding little in the way of fluid terrestrial passing, with most sequences of possession ending quickly in a ball lofted in vain over the midfield.
Mackenzie Arnold kept the score at 0-0, turning a shot around the post with half an hour gone.
A few breakneck Caitlin Foord-led surges aside, Australia had not troubled the French defence.
Then at the end of the first half, Mary Fowler had the yawning goal at her mercy, with the France keeper Pauline Peyraud Magnin out of her goal, and the ball squared to her.
She steered it goalward, and the Matildas going 1-0 up was as signed, sealed and delivered as a submarine contract.
Except Fowler’s shot was miraculously blocked by the thigh of Élisa De Almeida. A goal-saving block. God-like scrambling. A scarcely believable feat of defensive timing and effort.
A few minutes later, a lofted chip from Katrina Gorry sent Fowler in one-on-one again, but the keeper came steaming out, and stifled the finish.
A flurry of Australian chances to end the first half, but it finished scoreless.
When would we see Sam Kerr on the field? The second half began.
Fowler had the first chance of the second half, as the France keeper hit a poor clearing pass right to her; she swivelled and shot, but was deflected wide.
Then, with 35 minutes left, Kerr arrived, subbed on for Emily van Egmond.
She was instantly involved, surging forward with the ball setting up a move that saw Hayley Raso force a diving save with a goal-bound shot from distance.
The Matildas were leaning forward now, the field had tipped toward the French goal, the crowd was rattling the beams of Lang Park, and the chances were coming thick and fast.
Fowler had another golden shooting opportunity, hitting it right at the keeper’s legs, when either side would have bulged the net.
A France free kick that sent a ripple of panic through the Aussie defence reminded the faithful they were still a threat; one of these chances needed to be taken.
The initial plume of Kerr-mania subsided slightly, and France clambered back into the game, at first through set pieces, then eventually their passing game returned — in other words, the match was poised, waiting for one team to win it.
Caitlin Foord was toppled in the box, a penalty shout, her shirt pulled slightly. Not given. The final ten minutes of normal time began to tick down.
Arnold cut off several French crosses. Foord was a French toenail away from setting up Raso. Ellie Carpenter blazed over from distance. It was fraught.
Regulation time concluded, so to extra time we went.
Tony Gustavsson had only used one sub, and ten minutes of extra time came and went with the remainder of the bench unused.
A corner that had rolled out for a goal kick was awarded and spun in, France had the ball in the net, but the referee called a foul on Renard, dragging down Foord. Justice, if nerve-shreddingly arrived at.
The pacey Cortnee Vine came on, her first action was to flick the ball just past the post from a Foord cross.
The match was contorting, gurning and thrashing to avoid going to penalties.
We were in the second half of extra time now, and Arnold tipped a powerful shot around the post.
France was lifting now, forcing a perilous moment in the six yard box that needed a Catley block and hacked last-ditch clearance from the Matildas.
The final chances, corners, surges were the death throes of a match that had been torturous viewing throughout, that had rocked and jittered from beginning to end.
France manager Serge Renard subbed his goalkeeper off, in preparation for the penalty shootout. And a shootout would indeed decide this quarter final.
France went first: and Arnold saved it, shimmying, then diving to her right to put Australia on track.
Australia, and Foord, next: she slammed hers into the bottom corner. 1-0 Australia.
Diani was next, and stroked hers past Arnold. 1-1.
Steph Catley was next: her sidefooted shot, too close to the keeper, was padded away. Back on level terms in the shoot-out.
Renard, the French captain now: cooly finished to Arnold’s right. 2-1 France.
Sam Kerr, the talisman: slapped home, barely past the keeper’s glove, but there. 2-2.
Le Sommer next, and good. 3-2
Fowler next, just 20-years-old: smashed with venom into the bottom corner, 3-3.
The next France penalty … hits the post.
Then goalkeeper Arnold herself steps up, to win it: and she hits the post. Remarkable, excruciating, devastating, the story was written, and the fairytale ending was ripped away.
Arnold nearly saves the next penalty, getting her glove to it, but it flips past and in.
Katrina Gorry next, and she has to score to keep Australia in it: it barely creeps in after a solid contact by the keeper. This is almost too much to bear.
France’s next penalty is smashed into the roof of the net by Karchaoui.
Tameka Yallop now, still sudden death: she scores, passing past the keeper on the right. 5-5.
France’s next penalty; passed into the net, aerially, by Lakrar. 6-5.
Carpenter next, and we’re now so deep in the shootout line-up: in off the post, the least savable penalty you can hit. 6-6
Toletti next, and Arnold saves it low down to her left, near the post, a superhuman spring across the line.
But she was off her line — a retake, ordered by the VAR.
She saves the retake, same side, and this time it’s legal.
Now up steps Clare Hunt, with so few caps, to win it for Australia — and it’s saved, a strong hand down the middle of the goal. Astonishing. Another chance to win goes begging. 6-6, 18 penalties taken.
Feller next, and she hits the post. Once again Australia can win it.
Cortnee Vine now, and the whole nation asks ‘can she do it?’
She can.
She wheels away, the crowd explodes. The Matildas make history.
A semifinal. The first Australian team to make one at a World Cup. A marathon shootout, longer than any other in World Cup history, ends in glory.
Gustavsson drops to his knees, in tears. The players are leaping onto one another, the subs rush off the bench, it’s pure euphoria.
At that moment, every one of the 45,000 people in the stadium, and every one of the millions at home, were hand-in-hand, the pure, golden current of the emotion of this triumph linking them together, feeding through them, all that hope shared and gripped tight and now this sweet glorious release.
The echo of this match will sing out sweetly for some time.
And a semifinal awaits.
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