"Make sure you win without me": Australia win 4-0 after making a promise to Sam Kerr
Sam Kerr asked her teammates to win for her tonight. They proceeded to defeat Canada by a cavernous four goal margin
— Melbourne, Australia
Australia entered its third match of the ‘group of death’ sitting in third place.
They looked north toward the teams that might end their World Cup journey— short of the history they’d wished to make and steeped in the history they didn’t. They looked out at a packed sea of yellow and green, promised and hoping to see more of them. They looked also at their bench, where their talismanic leader sat achingly waiting, nursing injury, unable to join them.
Then they looked across the pitch at the reigning Olympic gold-medalists and proceeded to beat them 4-0.
It turns out their performance came together in no small measure at the behest of that very talismanic leader, Sam Kerr.
After the match, Tony Gustavsson explained to gathered media in Melbourne:
“And when it comes to Sam, what I can say, part of the reason why I also think that they were so united and performed the way they did is from the words Sam said to the team: make sure you win without me, so that I can get another week to train and recover and get healthy. And the team responded and said yes, we will, you sit on the bench tonight and we'll win for you.”
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