Tue. Nov 5th, 2024
Occasional Digest - a story for you

Kyah Simon’s Matildas career can be defined by a handful of big moments.

In 2010, she scored the winning penalty against North Korea that handed Australia their first ever Asian Cup trophy.

In 2011, she scored twice against Norway to qualify for the Women’s World Cup quarter-finals for just the second time, becoming the first Indigenous player to score at a World Cup.

In 2015, she scored Australia’s first ever World Cup knock-out goal when she netted against Brazil in the round of 16, which was ultimately the match-winner. It was the first time Australia had won a game at that stage of the tournament.

Kyah Simon made history in Canada when she scored the decisive goal against Brazil.()

And in 2020, it was her delicate pass to assist Emily Van Egmond’s goal against China during Olympic qualifiers that helped the Matildas down a much easier path to Tokyo, where they ended up reaching the bronze medal match for the first time.

Simon knows how to handle a big moment; the moments in which a game, a title, a record, a whole history can hinge.

Which is exactly why she’s not too worried about the new “game-changing” substitute role she’s set to have for the Matildas during the upcoming Women’s World Cup, having just returned from an ACL injury that kept her sidelined for the past nine months.

“My journey’s been so different leading into this World Cup to every other player in this squad because I’m coming off a longer-term injury,” she said.

“I haven’t got a whole season under my belt, and the discussion with Tony [Gustavsson] was that maybe I will have a different role in this team for this tournament.

“I said to Tony, when he told me I was in the squad, ‘I’m not expecting a free ticket; I don’t expect a free ticket for what I’ve done in the past at World Cups and goals I’ve scored, or the type of player I am. I want to be there because I want to feel like I deserve to be there.’

“It’s different from the Olympics, when I was a starter, and I said to him that I’d much prefer to be in the squad and have that [substitute] role rather than wanting to be a starter and missing out.

“He said to me that he’s not necessarily picking a team that might be showing the best form now, but players that he knows will show up for the big games in the World Cup.”

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