‘I just got started’: Matildas’ Mackenzie Arnold seeks return to dizzying heights | Jack Snape

She was a leading figure in one of Australian sport’s most irresistible moments, but Matildas goalkeeper Mackenzie Arnold hopes there are more high points to come. The self-described late bloomer was the hero of Australia’s shootout victory against France in the quarter-finals of last year’s World Cup, and her biography released this week is subtitled, “My story so far”.

That choice of words required some workshopping, and she hopes there will be enough material for a sequel. “We actually did put ‘My story’ for one bit, but it didn’t feel right. [In] 2023, I feel like I just got started, and we’re only in 2024 so it was like, I’m not going to really end it there,” she says, less than two months after joining Portland Thorns in the USA’s NWSL from English club West Ham United. “But the thought process [was] as well that I’m starting at a new team, I’m in a new country, we still have another World Cup, Asian Cup, but I think there’s a lot of possibilities to happen.”

The Matildas have become Australia’s most loved sporting team thanks to their recent achievements, but they face an uncertain future after the departure of coach Tony Gustavsson and a disappointing Paris Olympics campaign. Coming friendlies against Brazil and Taiwan on home soil are certain to draw crowds that even two years ago would have been barely fathomable, but the team’s recent popularity will be difficult to maintain.

Former coach Tom Sermanni was brought back last month to replace Gustavsson in an interim capacity ahead of friendly matches later this month in Europe against Switzerland and Germany. The 70-year-old will only be in the seat for as long as it takes for Football Australia to find a permanent appointment, a search that is ongoing.

Arnold doesn’t want to interfere in the process of appointing someone, but says the relationship between the players and the coach will influence the team’s success. “We just want, at the end of the day, a coach that is going to have our best interests [at heart] and know the strengths of our team and play to those strengths,” she says. “At the end of the day, I think whoever does come in, eventually, permanently, whoever it is, we will back 100% as they will back us.”

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Gustavsson departed at the end of his contract amid fans’ frustration around the Matildas’ performances. The side failed to progress through the group stage in Paris, and their only victory was an out-of-control 6-5 comeback victory over Zambia.

Arnold defends the Swede’s record, and says the players have largely ignored the commentary around the coach’s performance and the team. “It’s just sort of white noise at the end of the day, and I think if you look back at our time with Tony, we were a very successful team.” She says she is “thankful” for the relationship she had with the Matildas’ former coach, which started off on the wrong foot after she was dropped for the Tokyo Olympics.

“We knew we weren’t really on the same page at the start, but I told him after, looking back now I understand why he did what he did at that time,” Arnold says. “It was something that I needed, and I think something that at the end of the day got me to where I am today.”

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Arnold emerged as the Matildas’ No 1 in the lead-up to the 2023 Women’s World Cup, ahead of Teagan Micah and Lydia Williams. And she was central to one of Australian sport’s most dramatic moments – the shootout victory against France at Suncorp Stadium. Eighteen pages of the book are devoted to a kick-by-kick account of the match after Arnold re-watched it four times from multiple angles.

“I remember when I missed my penalty, obviously, I was so gutted, but I turned around, and as I turned around, the girls were clapping and being like, ‘it’s fine, like, it’s all good’,” she says. “At that time, I was like, ‘oh, OK, like, we’re all fine’. I went back and checked the video, and they had already done the hands-on-the-head and everything before I had turned around. Luckily I turned around at the right time.”

Arnold says leaving West Ham was hard, but the three-year contract with the Thorns in a league that is enjoying renewed investment was a “massive opportunity that I think I would have been silly not to take”, and gives her a chance to get out of her comfort zone.

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The 30-year-old is still getting settled in Portland, and will split her time over the next year between the US, Australia and London, where her partner Kirsty Smith still plays for West Ham. “With [international] camps and stuff, you don’t really know where you’re going to be at certain times, so we just sort of roll with it, and just try and fit in time for each other when we can.”

In writing the book along with journalist Emma Kemp, Arnold says she has been able to re-live the extraordinary highs of the World Cup. “I don’t think you really realise what impact we had or the magnitude of what was going on until we had all finished, and we sort of looked back and we’re like, ‘wow, that’s crazy’,” she says. “It’s definitely going to be very, very hard to live up to those moments again, for sure.”

• Macca: My story so far is published on 8 October