The Canadian Premier League is proud to be part of the Guardian’s Women’s World Cup 2023 Experts’ Network, a cooperation between some of the best media organizations from the 32 countries who qualified.
The Australia player profiles were written by Joey Lynch, who writes for the Guardian Australia.
GROUP B SQUAD PROFILES: Canada || Nigeria || Republic of Ireland || Australia
Goalkeepers
1. Lydia Williams
Date of birth: May 13, 1988
Place of birth: Katanning, Australia
Club: Brighton & Hove Albion
Caps: 102
A veteran of more than 100 appearances for Australia, Williams has been a fixture in the national setup since 2006 and regardless of whether she is starting, she serves as a priceless and well-loved leader of the side. Not bad for someone who had not heard of the Matildas until she was called up to the national setup for the first time as a 15-year-old. Her chances of starting at the World Cup have been hampered by a dearth of minutes at club level – playing only 180 league minutes for Arsenal and PSG in 2022 before moving to Brighton. A proud Noongar woman, the 34-year-old spent much of her childhood in Kalgoorlie where she raised two kangaroos and developed a deep connection to Country (an Australian term that refers to the physical and spiritual connection Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have to their ancestral land). In 2019 she authored a children’s book Saved!!!, which drew upon her upbringing and rise as an Indigenous footballer.
12. Teagan Micah
Date of birth: October 20, 1997
Place of birth: Moe, Australia
Club: Rosengård
Caps: 14
Born in the regional Victorian town of Moe, Micah was the first-choice keeper for the Matildas at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, saving a crucial penalty in extra time of their victory over Great Britain in the quarter-finals. Concussion concerns, however, have dogged her preparation for the World Cup and probably robbed her of the chance to take up the No. 1 mantle, a missed six months of football after a collision in a Champions League match last December throwing even her place in this squad up in the air. The 25-year-old is one of the few players in the Matildas squad to have been developed in the American collegiate system, having enjoyed a successful stint with the UCLA Bruins.
18. Mackenzie Arnold
Date of birth: February 25, 1994
Place of birth: Gold Coast, Australia
Club: West Ham United
Caps: 34
Tony Gustavsson has chopped and changed his starting goalkeeper across this cycle, meaning it is difficult to say who his preference will be when the tournament opens, but given her recent run of form and starts at club and international level, it appears that Arnold is in line to be first choice. No doubt music to ears she’s hearing a bit clearer now; the West Ham keeper revealed after the Covid-19 pandemic forced everyone behind masks and robbed her of the ability to lip read, that she finally bit the bullet on a problem that had been affecting her since her early 20s and got her hearing checked, leading to her being fitted with hearing aids. “There’s been quite a few messages from parents and kids who’ve been playing with hearing aids and some people that are my age as well that have thanked me for speaking out about it,” she told AAP.
Defenders
2. Courtney Nevin
Date of birth: February 12, 2002
Place of birth: Blacktown, Australia
Club: Leicester City
Caps: 22
Nevin typifies the pathway into the Matildas team that Tony Gustavsson, his staff and Football Australia have attempted to hone in recent years: racking up minutes in the A-League Women competition alongside her progression through the Junior Matildas, Young Matildas, and Future Matildas programs before being called into the senior side and securing a move overseas. Her first call-up to the Matildas coincided with her high school exams in 2019, and Nevin has been a regular part of squads since, backed through some inconsistent performances to develop into an important depth player that can operate in multiple defensive roles, like her role model Steph Catley.
3. Aivi Luik
Date of birth: March 18, 1985
Place of birth: Perth, Australia
Club: Häcken
Caps: 42
Luik is the type of player that every side need but not all are blessed to have: a tireless worker and able to fill in at multiple positions, who does the hard yards without expecting much praise or fanfare. After spending much of her career in midfield, the 38-year-old shifted into the backline later on in her career and with the Matildas experiencing ongoing problems with depth and fitness in that position, was called out of a five-month international retirement by Gustavsson going into the 2022 Asian Cup. That an out-of-retirement Luik is one of the best backup options after a four-year cycle that has been heavily devoted to building depth and bringing young players through isn’t the most auspicious long-term sign, but the four-time A-League Women champion is a dependable team leader and stopgap option in the short-term.
4. Clare Polkinghorne
Date of birth: February 1, 1989
Place of birth: Brisbane, Australia
Club: Vittsjö
Caps: 156
The Matildas aren’t exactly bereft of players beloved by the Australian footballing public, but you’d struggle to find one that inspires the same level of affection as Polkinghorne. She is the most-capped Australian player – male or female – in history, and there has been an informal campaign to get the Queensland legend a statue outside the World Cup venue Lang Park for years now, one that swells in numbers and volume whenever she gets forward and sparks wild celebrations with a goal. At 34 this year’s tournament represents a potential last dance for the defender, possibly extending to next year’s Paris Olympics, and her battles with time mean that she will likely need to be paired with a more athletically inclined partner in the heart of the Matildas’ defence, but she’s an almost certain starter.
7. Steph Catley
Date of birth: January 26, 1994
Place of birth: Melbourne, Australia
Club: Arsenal
Caps: 109
Though she perhaps flies under the radar compared to the likes of Sam Kerr and Ellie Carpenter, Catley is also one of the genuinely world-class players in this Matildas’ squad and a vital defensive presence and leader. She can fill in at both left-back and a more central role in a back four or five (though it almost feels as if she is wasted centrally given what she provides out wide). Melbourne-born and raised, the 29-year-old won multiple A-League Women championships with both Melbourne Victory and City and, in true Victorian fashion, wears the No 7, not in tribute to any football idol but to the St Kilda AFL great Lenny Hayes.
14. Alanna Kennedy
Date of birth: January 21, 1995
Place of birth: Campbelltown, Australia
Club: Manchester City
Caps: 108
A large part of the Matildas’ ongoing defensive depth problems during this World Cup cycle can be traced to Kennedy’s ongoing battles with injury – the 28-year-old returning to the fold in a 2022 friendly against Canada, only to limp off with a hamstring in the opening half. With much of her game built on physical presence, her ability to win her fitness battles could be a potentially tournament-defining storyline for the Matildas, even though she has been surpassed on the depth chart by Clare Hunt. She recently signed a new deal with City that ties her to the club until 2025. One of her tattoos says “I love a sunburnt country”, from a poem by Dorothea MacKellar. “It reminds me of home and outlines what Australia looks like as a country,” she says.
15. Clare Hunt
Date of birth: March 12, 1999
Place of birth: Grenfell, Australia
Club: Western Sydney Wanderers
Caps: 5
Hunt is one of the closest things to a surprise package in this largely settled squad, recognised for her standout A-League Women season with Western Sydney Wanderers with a maiden international call-up in February this year. With depth in the centre-back position still one of the question marks hanging over this team, Hunt is now set to play in a World Cup. It is a fairytale moment for the Grenfell native, whose story is one of persistence, refusing to give up in the face of seemingly endless adversity and, eventually, being rewarded for all her work with the realisation of a lifelong dream. In the past five years the defender has suffered and overcome an ACL rupture, multiple operations on her other knee, a shoulder dislocation that required a full reconstruction, and a fractured tibia.
21. Ellie Carpenter
Date of birth: April 28, 2000
Place of birth: Cowra, Australia
Club: Lyon
Caps: 61
Australia held its breath when Carpenter went down just minutes into Lyon’s win over Barcelona in the 2022 Women’s Champions League final and then feared the worst when it was revealed she had suffered an ACL injury. But with her now back on the field, Australia’s chances of doing something notable on home soil have been given a major boost. One of the best right-backs in the world, it feels almost bizarre to think that Carpenter, this kid from rural New South Wales, is still only 23. Called into Australia’s U-17 squad aged 14, she was playing senior A-League Women’s football and debuting for the Matildas a year later before becoming the youngest player to ever play women’s football at the Olympics, in 2016. Two years later she set the mark as the youngest player and goalscorer in NWSL history and then followed that up with a World Cup appearance and a move to the biggest club in women’s football at the age of 20.
22. Charlotte Grant
Date of birth: September 20, 2001
Place of birth: Adelaide, Australia
Club: Vittsjö
Caps: 18
Profile: If you’ve got a hankering to see a squad at the Women’s World Cup bust out their best Taylor Swift lip-sync performance, best to jump on TikTok and see if Charlotte Grant blesses the public with another gem. One of a wave of new faces brought into the team during Gustavsson’s project to build depth and blood new talent, Grant was asked to somehow fill the gap left by Ellie Carpenter’s ACL injury. And though there is no danger of her supplanting the Lyon star, she has now established herself as a dependable option both on the right and the left, and scored her maiden international goal in the Matildas’ win over England earlier this year.
GROUP B TEAM GUIDES: Canada || Nigeria || Republic of Ireland || Australia
Midfielders
6. Clare Wheeler
Date of birth: January 14, 1998
Place of birth: Coffs Harbour, Australia
Club: Everton
Caps: 14
Debuting for Newcastle Jets as a 15-year-old, Wheeler spent seven years toiling away for her local club in the A-League Women, making the finals only once across that stretch before eventually moving on to Sydney FC and Fortuna Hjørring in Denmark. This made it fitting that what was considered the former Adamstown Rosebud junior’s breakout performance for the Matildas – a late appearance off the bench to salvage a 1-1 draw in an otherwise challenging series with the U.S. – came at Newcastle’s McDonald Jones Stadium. An out-and-out defensive midfielder who sealed a permanent move to Everton earlier this year, Wheeler helps add steel at the base of the Matildas’ midfield.
8. Alex Chidiac
Date of birth: January 15, 1999
Place of birth: Sydney, Australia
Club: Racing Louisville
Caps: 27
Chidiac is one of the most technically proficient players in the Matildas squad: a midfielder who wants the ball in tight spaces and embraces the risks that come with trying to make things happen. Fans have consistently called for the 2022-23 Julie Dolan medalist with Victory to start at a national level, but Gustavsson appears to have settled on using her as an off-the-bench “game-changer”, something she also excels at. No one was happier than Chidiac, a member of the Common Goal initiative, when the World Cup’s mascot, Tazuni, a Eudyptula penguin native to Australia and New Zealand, was revealed to the world. The midfielder has owned an Emperor penguin plush toy since birth (named Mama Penguin), which now follows her on her travels around the world as a stand-in for her mother (who also owns a small penguin plush representing Alex).
10. Emily van Egmond
Date of birth: July 12, 1993
Place of birth: Newcastle, Australia
Club: San Diego Wave
Caps: 127
One of only two players in the Matildas squad contracted to an NWSL side (Alex Chidiac being the other), there is perhaps no better combination of player and city than Van Egmond and San Diego. The native Novocastrian, daughter of the former Socceroo and ex-Matildas assistant coach Gary, is never more at home than when she’s on the beach or riding waves. Her Twitter handle is quite literally @Em_surf. Though she is one of the most capped players in the team’s history, making 127 appearances since debuting in 2010 at the time of writing, Van Egmond’s role within the squad has become unclear across the past four years. Attempts to use her in a deeper, holding role in midfield have proven to be sub-optimal and the need to deploy her higher up the pitch has her caught up and potentially being overtaken in a logjam of players vying for minutes going into her fourth World Cup.
13. Tameka Yallop
Date of birth: June 16, 1991
Place of birth: Orange, Australia
Club: Brann
Caps: 112
Another member of the squad with more than 100 international caps to her name – achieving the mark against the U.S. in 2022 – Yallop is also one of two mothers in the team: baby Harley and wife Kirsty, herself a former New Zealand international, becoming regular presences in the Matildas in recent years as pandemic restrictions subsided and the squad moved to embrace and support the mothers in the team. Nominally a midfielder, Yallop’s ability to play in multiple positions has been frequently called upon by Tony Gustavsson throughout the buildup for the World Cup, with the veteran thrown into both defence and attack at different points.
19. Katrina Gorry
Date of birth: August 13, 1992
Place of birth: Brisbane, Australia
Club: Brisbane Roar
Caps: 93
The other mother in the midfield ranks, Gorry made the decision to fulfil her long-standing desire to become a parent while isolated away from friends and family during the pandemic. She started IVF while on the books of the Norwegian side Avaldsnes and discovered that it had been successful during a mandatory two-week quarantine period upon her return to Queensland. Giving birth to baby Harper in August 2021, she made her return to the Matildas in 2022 and instantly established herself as one of their most important players. Shifted from the No. 10 slot to pulling the strings at the base of the midfield in a regista-like role under Gustavsson, the Matildas’ ability to consistently function in possession and transition leans heavily on the footballing intelligence and bravery with and without the ball that the diminutive 30-year-old possesses.
23. Kyra Cooney-Cross
Date of birth: February 15, 2002
Place of birth: Herston, Australia
Club: Hammarby
Caps: 27
Cooney-Cross’s life has been nomadic, her childhood spent criss-crossing Australia with stops in the Sunshine Coast, Alice Springs, Ballarat and Torquay – debuting in the A-League Women with Melbourne Victory as a 15-year-old – before she eventually moved, on her own, up to Sydney to enrol in the Future Matildas. Now, she is regularly starting and earning plaudits in Sweden with Hammarby, who recently won the domestic Cup. Named as a standby player for the 2019 World Cup before actually making her senior international debut, Cooney-Cross has become an ever-present member of squads since she finally made her official debut in 2021. Beyond her role in the midfield she has become something of an “Olimpico” specialist – scoring directly from a corner – the most famous example being when she won the 2021 ALW grand final for Victory with a 120th-minute strike.
Forwards
5. Cortnee Vine
Date of birth: April 9, 1998
Place of birth: Shepparton, Australia
Club: Sydney FC
Caps: 16
In a recent documentary series charting the journey of the Matildas, Vine declared that one of her goals was to become the fastest player in the world. And while the world is a pretty big place, the 25-year-old has a good case for being one of the swiftest at this year’s World Cup. A recent winner of the A-League Women’s grand final with Sydney FC, the fleet-footed winger’s continued selection by Gustavsson is impressive considering the coach’s repeated statements surrounding players needing to head overseas for more professional and challenging environments, particularly during the ALW off-season. Vine’s entire career has been spent playing for clubs in Australia.
9. Caitlin Foord
Date of birth: November 11, 1994
Place of birth: Shellharbour, Australia
Club: Arsenal
Caps: 108
For all the focus on Sam Kerr heading into this World Cup, Foord will also play a massive role for the hosts. Indeed, while it may be tempting to declare Foord – who grew up as more of an NRL fan than a footballing one – as the Robin to Kerr’s Batman in attack, such a characterisation massively understates the role that the Arsenal dynamo has in making this Matildas side tick. It was no coincidence that Foord’s move to a more central role alongside Kerr in a 4-4-2 or 4-2-2-2 – as opposed to her positioning out wide in a ‘Kerr and Friends’-style 4-3-3 – coincided with the Matildas becoming a much more threatening side in attack. She has come a long way since being named young player of the tournament in 2011, as a fullback that gave the legendary Marta fits.
11. Mary Fowler
Date of birth: February 14, 2003
Place of birth: Cairns, Australia
Club: Manchester City
Caps: 36
Born in far north Queensland, Fowler and her four siblings did not own a television growing up, instead needing to find other ways to amuse themselves on the streets and beaches of Cairns, which, of course, frequently meant playing football. So perhaps it should be no surprise that the 20-year-old’s ability with the ball at her feet has had coaches across Australia – as well as the Republic of Ireland, for whom she was also eligible – raving ever since she was old enough to be noticed. Debuting for the Matildas as a 15-year-old and a member of the 2019 World Cup squad, all before she had even played in a senior professional league, Fowler has been the premier wunderkind of the past cycle, although her meteoric rise has hit a speedbump after only seeing sparse minutes at Manchester City following a June move and competing with a crowded Matildas starting XI.
16. Hayley Raso
Date of birth: September 5, 1994
Place of birth: Brisbane, Australia
Club: Real Madrid
Caps: 70
Profile: Raso’s nickname is Ribbons, derived from the signature ribbons she wears in her hair during games and which helped shape the children’s book she released in 2021, Hayley’s Ribbon. In real life her ribbons were bestowed upon her by her grandmother Patricia, who would match the colours to her various teams. Fifty per cent of the profits from the book went to the charity HeartKids – Raso’s brother Lachlan was born with congenital heart disease and had open-heart surgery in 2015. Recently leaving Manchester City in search of more minutes and signing with Spanish giants Real Madrid – the first ever Australian to play for Los Blancos – the combative and hard-running Raso has been used in a variety of positions for the national team but is best suited in wider positions higher up the pitch.
17. Kyah Simon
Date of birth: June 25, 1991
Place of birth: Blacktown, Australia
Club: Unattached (most recently Tottenham Hotspur)
Caps: 111
Simon was forced into a race against time to be ready for what will be her third and almost certainly last World Cup – she missed the 2019 iteration through injury – when she suffered an ACL injury in October last year. Despite a lack of game time to accompany her return to fitness (the Matildas’ opening game, against the Republic of Ireland, is the first competitive fixture she will have been able to play in since the injury) her legacy in green and gold has convinced Gustavsson to add her to a crowded attack. A proud Anaiwan woman, Simon was the first Indigenous Australian to score in a World Cup and reach 100 caps for the national side and is tireless in her work as an Indigenous advocate and anti-racism campaigner.
20. Sam Kerr
Date of birth: September 10, 1993
Place of birth: East Fremantle, Australia
Club: Chelsea
Caps: 120
At times it can be difficult to come up with enough superlatives to describe Kerr’s achievements, abilities and the impact that she has had on the Australian game. The Perth-born striker has legitimate claims to being the most lethal striker on the planet and her star power and iconic status at home have almost transcended the Matildas and football; even the most oblivious of Australians could be safely anticipated to know who she is. The Matildas’ form has improved since moving away from a “kick it to Kerr” game plan and incorporating others more often in recent games but, paradoxically, it is almost guaranteed that their fate at the tournament depends on how far Kerr can take them. Fortunately for those in green and gold she thrives on the big moments and – stretching back to her days with childhood club Western Knights out at Perth’s Mosman Park and continuing through the A-League Women, NWSL, WSL, Champions League and more – goals have followed her wherever she goes.
For team previews and squad profiles for the other three teams in Group B, click here.