It was a perfect case study in the brilliance of Caitlin Foord. When the Matildas forward gained possession midway through the first half against Denmark night, she was deep in her own team’s half. This would have come as no surprise to her colleagues, who regularly hail Foord’s defensive work ethic.
The forward quickly dispatched a crisp pass to Mary Fowler. And then she took off. Foord has variety in her attacking arsenal. She can outwit defenders as she runs at them with the ball; she can pass her way through most midfields. But Foord is at her blistering best on the counter-attack, when she launches herself like a rocket down the left flank.
And so it was on Monday before a capacity crowd at Stadium Australia. There were six Denmark players between Fowler and Foord, but the transition pass was inch-perfect as Foord raced along the wing. Having started her run on the edge of the Matildas box, she regathered the ball at the top of Denmark’s 18-yard line. Foord would only need two touches: one to poke it forward and bypass chasing defender Stine Ballisager, another to send it clinically past custodian Lene Christensen. Speed, skill and scoring – the sublime brilliance of Caitlin Foord.
After the game, the superlatives flowed from her teammates. For all the talk in recent weeks of the Matildas missing their star striker Sam Kerr, among the best forwards in the world, another of the best attackers on the planet was playing all along. “She lit it up,” said centre-back Alanna Kennedy. “She’s incredible. She’s one of the best players in the world at the moment.”
Foord’s partner on the left for club and country, Steph Catley, insisted her Arsenal teammate’s class had always been there for all to see. “It’s not a surprise to me and I don’t know if it’s a surprise to anyone,” she said. “She’s an incredible player and she’s been building for a while now.”
Catley cited the comprehensive nature of Foord’s contribution to the team. “It’s nice to see her let loose and do her thing – she had so many chances to run at players tonight and do what she does best,” the Matildas vice-captain said. “I think my favourite part about what she does is that she works just as hard on the other side of the ball defensively. Making tackles and tracking back. She is a pleasure to play with.”
Foord is a woman of few words when facing the media; where some of her teammates or coach Tony Gustavsson like to wax lyrical, Foord is straight and to the point. It is a character trait that reflects her on-pitch style too: she is rarely staying still, always somewhere to be, not overthinking anything but just getting on with the job.
At the end of a jubilant night in Sydney, Foord was asked what had crossed her mind as she took the shot that put the Matildas on the verge of the World Cup quarter-final, for only the second time in history. “Not much to be honest,” she said. A typical Foord answer. “I just wanted to get it on target, keep it low. I was super pleased to see it go in the back of the net.” So was an entire nation.
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We will never know how this World Cup might have transpired had Kerr not injured her left calf in training on the eve of the tournament. But in her absence, Foord has risen to the challenge. The attacking dynamo has put the nation on her shoulders and, for all the speculation around Kerr’s calf, helped take Australia to the last eight at this home World Cup largely without Kerr.
But for all Foord’s brilliance these past weeks, it was easy to forget that she had not yet got on the scoresheet until Monday. Sometimes the best attackers don’t need to – Foord led the line against Ireland, struggled valiantly and created space for the Matildas’ opening goal against Nigeria, and played a key role in both of Hayley Raso’s strikes against Canada. But anyone with attacking instincts likes to see the ripple of the netting at least occasionally. “That goal has been coming for Caitlin,” said Kerr, who knows the feeling all too well. “I’m really happy for her tonight.”
The Matildas will be boosted by Kerr’s return, but in Foord they already had one of the most lethal attackers in the world. And Kennedy had a warning for the opposition that await Australia in the quarter-finals and possibly beyond: “I think she even has more to give moving forward in this tournament.”