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.
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.”
Simon’s road here, like that of many other Matildas, has not been as easy as it may seem on the surface.
Recovery from an ACL injury is a long, painful, and lonely process; one that takes athletes to the very edge of their mental and emotional horizons.
For Simon, a veteran of football and the major injuries it can bring, having sat out the 2019 Women’s World Cup due to a foot fracture, even she had moments where she wondered whether this might be the end of the road entirely.
“I had doubts in my mind throughout that time, you know, ‘why do I want to play football? Why do I want to put myself through this?'” she said.
“Emotionally, I was a moody wreck some days, and then other days I’d be on top of the world because I had small wins in my rehab.
“For me, what I really tried to do was stay really present day-by-day and not even think about the World Cup.
“I think the moments I let myself slip too far down the track — even if it was a few days, a week, a month, whatever — I really lost that time in that day. So I really tried to stay present and take it step-by-step.
“I had the support of my family and friends, my partner in the UK as well. Without them, and obviously the medical team for the Matildas … I’ll be forever in debt to them for supporting me through such a tough time in my career, with such a high-pressure situation [and] so much weighing on my rehab.
“I had a very different experience in 2019, so thinking back to that and comparing it, it feels so different in terms of the support and how I felt throughout that rehab.”
While Simon’s world closed in around her throughout rehab, with small moments like walking unassisted or bending the knee to a particular degree feeling like major life achievements, the Matildas continued on without her.
She couldn’t bring herself to talk to very many people about watching her national team from afar. Media requests were regularly turned down. She confided in her closest circle — including the Matildas’ head physiotherapist, who she was in contact with almost daily — but she kept her darker thoughts, which she described as “a can of worms”, largely to herself.
When she was able, she was invited into camps just to stay part of the environment and the culture. She’d sit in on briefings, video sessions, meetings, tactical chats. She’d join them for meals and gym sessions. But there was always that lingering question of whether she’d be ready in time for the World Cup squad cut-off date.
Indeed, she had doubts all the way up until she sat in the hotel armchair across from Gustavsson last Thursday, when he told her she’d made the final 23.
“I just broke down in tears,” she said. “I had different moments [throughout rehab], like a breakthrough with a certain pain that I’d had, and I was like ‘oh, there is a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel.’
“But it wasn’t until I got back to Australia in the pre-camp that I actually saw the bigger light. I actually felt like I was closer to being back in form and back to playing.
“When I had that meeting with Tony, I was still in the dark. I didn’t know if I was going to be at the World Cup; I didn’t believe it until those words came out of his mouth.
“Training and having confidence in my ability is one thing, but then obviously the coach has plans, and was I in his plans? Did he still see me as that player?
“From when I sustained that major injury eight months ago, to knowing what I’ve gone through for those eight months — day in, day out, the challenges that I’ve faced — for it to finally come to a head and to achieve that goal that I set when I underwent the surgery, it was just massive relief; like a weight was lifted off my shoulders.”
But while she’s ticked that particular box, there are still a few more that the player Sam Kerr describes as “exceptional” has her sights set on.
With just over two weeks to go before the tournament starts, Simon is still competing with her own body to be ready enough to make an impact if — or when — she’s needed.
“She’s not selected based on where she is right now, she’s selected based on where we’re thinking she comes in a month from now,” Gustavsson said at the squad unveiling on Monday.
“She has a phenomenal connection with not just Sam [Kerr], but all the players. There’s an understanding and a history there on the pitch that we’ve seen multiple times.
“The last time I saw it was in the Olympics when she was behind a lot of our goals. So she’s based on being a game changer.
“I’ve been very clear to Kyah, I don’t expect her to start the game, I don’t think she’s going to be ready for that, but the game changer off the bench.”
Simon is okay with that. To be here at all, after everything she’s gone through, is miraculous to begin with.
And as her entire career has shown, when her big moment arrives, she will know exactly what to do.
“I’m not going to change anything I’ve done from when I first sustained the injury to now, because it’s got me in the position that I’m in now,” she said.
“Ultimately, I want to do whatever is best for the team in terms of whatever role that is for me: whether I’m a game-changer, whether I don’t get on [the field] but I’m helping with the team morale, whether I am a starter at some point in the tournament.
“Whatever it is, I think I’m getting myself in the best physical shape and form that I possibly can to give my maximum, whatever that may look like.
“By no means is the job done. Obviously [making the squad] is one little tick I can check off from my goal list, but at the same time, I don’t want to go to the World Cup just to be a squad player.
“I want to go to help the team achieve something special.”