MACCA

Penalties. Two teams can play football for a full 120 min­utes, for a combined 36 shots on goal, 20 corners and 841 passes, only for the whole thing to be rendered irrelevant as soon as the full-time whistle goes. Then everything comes down to an entirely different kind of contest.

That’s the case at the end of extra time in the World Cup quarter-final, on home soil, against France. The game has become an exaggeration of actual football. Hearts and careers are both broken and mended by penalty shootouts, and I’m a tragic from way back. Having said that, the anticipation can be a bit scary.

I can already see it in the middle distance when, in the 107th minute, I stick up a left glove to stop Vicki Bècho scoring the first goal of the game. That would be worse, I decide in an instant, than losing a World Cup quarter-final on penalties. Direct culpability and all that. Two minutes later, Grace Geyoro whips in a cross that requires another intervention at my near post before Steph Catley cleans up the rest. In the ruckus, Alanna Kennedy is down after a head clash with Eugénie Le Sommer and needs a head-injury assessment before she can return to play. I don’t even hear the outnumbered French support trying in vain to take over Suncorp Stadium. Don’t they know this is the most Aussie ground ever? I know – I’ve been sitting in those stands since I was a toddler. But this is not the thing responsible for my racing mind as I deny Bècho once more late in the second half of extra time. I am picturing the shootout saves I might make and the consequences of a win or a loss. For me. For the Matildas. For women’s football. I am thinking too deeply. What’s the deal with that? And why are France subbing on a back-up goalkeeper? Solène Durand has made just two senior international appearances and both came in friendlies. Is she especially good at saving penalties? Can someone wearing green and gold not just score in the next 30 seconds?

There’s the whistle. The saving grace. The signal that it is time to actually do the shootout rather than angst over it while the other team are still throwing the kitchen sink my way. I am in game mode. Right now, I don’t want inspirational talks. I just need to get to our goal­keeper coach, Tony Franken, so we can finalise our plan. But Tony is talking at 100 miles an hour, running through analyses of all the different kickers. I’m feeling good but the wave of information has the potential to overwhelm me. ‘Tony, stop, it’s too much,’ I say. ‘We’ll take it as it comes.’ He understands instantly, stops talking, and that is that. I’m only half-listening to the team huddle behind me.

The appointment and order of our penalty takers has noth­ing to do with me. That is, until I hear the voice of our manager, Tony Gustavsson: ‘Macca.’ I turn around to see Tony G. holding up five fingers. I know what that means even before he says, ‘You will take the fifth penalty.’