Sam Kerr’s latest exploits mark her out as one of Australia’s greatest athletes

With each purpose scored, trophy lifted and piece of historical past recorded, Sam Kerr continues to lift herself right into a pantheon reserved for a choose few in Australian sport. After the Matildas captain helped carry Chelsea to a 3rd consecutive Women’s Super League title on Sunday with a shocking brace, her standing as one her nation’s most celebrated athletes has been rubber-stamped.

Kerr dragged her facet again onto degree phrases towards Manchester United with a fiercely struck volley moments into the second half, earlier than she repeated the feat 20 minutes later with a floated effort, having managed the ball on her chest and swivelled to face purpose in one easy motion.

Effectively killing the sport off at 4-2, the second was a miraculous purpose. By all rights, the mix of the event, the excessive stakes and the diploma of problem ought to have consigned it to the realm of fiction. Yet for Kerr, who spoke afterwards about how she visualises moments such as these, that is her actuality.

Lured to by the promise of trophies, she has now lifted three WSL titles, two League Cups, a Community Shield and an FA Cup with Chelsea. In simply over two years in west London, she has received back-to-back WSL golden boots and final week was named alongside Liverpool’s Mo Salah as one of the Football Writers Association’s footballers of the yr. In January, Fifa recognised her as the second-best girls’s participant on the planet behind solely Spain’s Alexia Putellas. At simply 28 years previous, she has received home titles or golden boots – or each – in England, the United States and Australia.

Internationally, she captains and has performed over 100 video games for the Matildas. In January, she surpassed Tim Cahill as Australian soccer’s most prolific worldwide goalscorer on the Asian Cup, even when the marketing campaign in the end resulted in failure.

Slowly however certainly, Kerr has change into the alpha and omega for her nation. It took simply over seven years for her to achieve double figures after scoring her first worldwide purpose at 16, however within the 4 and a half years since, she has scored practically 50. Upon being named as the coach who will lead the Matildas into a house World Cup in 2023, one of Tony Gustavsson’s first strikes was to spend hours watching and analysing his new talisman’s objectives in an try and learn the way she ticked.

Inevitably, such an method carries its personal dangers. The Chelsea squad with whom Kerr dominates, as nicely as her position inside that, differs from the nationwide facet. It’s not merely a matter of plug in and play. Much just like the Socceroos’ expertise with Cahill, the Matildas have confronted questions over a perceived over-reliance on Kerr to attain and the possibly limiting components within the method and composition that flows from this. They’re vital conversations to have and scrutiny is required – however they’re solely made attainable as a result of of her potential.

Without query, Kerr is one of her nation’s greatest sporting stars. Given the context of her achievements, arguments may be made that she might in actual fact be the most important and, even when not, a fair stronger one may be made that within the wake of Ash Barty’s shock retirement she is her homeland’s most notable lively feminine athlete. Every accomplishment and piece of recognition she receives solely provides to this.

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So-called “code wars” are one of essentially the most tiresome elements of Australian sport, however observing that Kerr is the sort of athlete different sports activities may solely dream of having isn’t a lot a salvo on this ideological battle a lot as an statement of goal reality. It’s not simply because she’s the face of a nationwide staff or is one of one of the best on the planet at what she does – Australian sport is blessed to have a quantity of athletes that match that class – it’s that she does all this whereas signed to one of international sport’s greatest manufacturers in Chelsea, as one of the faces of one other in Nike, and whereas enjoying the most-watched sport on the planet.

In a vacuum, Kerr is simply one of 11 gamers on the park at any one time, however from a wider perspective, her profile has transcended soccer within the eyes of an Australian public more and more apathetic in direction of the world sport. Even when you don’t know soccer, of Kerr.

A-League Women sides with newly opened borders discover themselves at a loss as to which marquee gamers they might goal to maneuver the dial. Who may minimize it in a world the place suburban parks across the nation only some years in the past had Kerr scoring a hat-trick nearly each week?

The reply is probably going no one. Because Australia has by no means had an athlete like Sam Kerr.

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