The Show Must Go On

Any sports fan will tell you that they never want to see a player get injured, least of all one of the best players.

Last week news broke that Australia’s women’s football captain Sam Kerr had injured her anterior cruciate ligament, and would be out for nine to 12 months; as is the norm with these injuries. She underwent surgery on the knee on Thursday in London. Anyone who loves football and sport will no doubt be wishing her a speedy recovery.

Having an anterior cruciate injury is a major blow to anyone. Not only is it a year out from playing, the rehabilitation is gruelling. Only the truly committed and driven get through it.

Many of the top athletes will tell you that this is one of the loneliest times in their careers. It is also a period where they are understandably very susceptible to depression.

Sam Kerr has been through this before. So she knows just how hard it is mentally and physically. That is why it will have really taken the wind out of her sails. She is under no illusions as to how much work it is going to take to get back to the top, and playing to the level she has been in recent years.

Kerr suffered her first ACL injury in 2011. She was 18 years old at the time and just starting out on her career, although she had made both her professional debut with Perth Glory and her international debut with the Matildas at 15 years old. She scored her first international goal at 16.

Despite what some media outlets reported this week – why let facts get in the way of a story! – the injury may have meant that she would not have gone to the London Olympic Games, but the crucial factor is Australia did not qualify for the Olympics in 2012. So Kerr did not miss out on the Olympic Games due to her injury as has been reported.

On the 7th of December 2014 playing for Perth Glory against Canberra United in Canberra, Kerr injured her left knee in the second half and had to leave the field of play. Scans on her left knee displayed damage to the joint surface requiring surgery which took place under the care of the Matildas medical staff.

This was when it became a race for Kerr to be fit for the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Having been a bit part player in 2011 Kerr was determined to make it back to fitness. This was when AIS strength and conditioning coach Aaron Holt spent six weeks working with her on a high-intensity rehabilitation program. Kerr made it back, and went to the World Cup.

Four years later in 2019 as the Matildas were preparing to head to another World Cup Finals, following the success of the Socceroos ‘Thank You Letters’ campaign in 2018, – Hyundai, the major sponsor of Football Australia at the time, in conjunction with their advertising agencies Octagon and Milkmoney decided to do a follow up campaign sharing little known but incredibly powerful stories from four key Matildas players including Sam Kerr, Lisa de Vanna, Alanna Kennedy and Clare Polkinghorne. They were given the opportunity to put pen to paper and write a thank you letter to people who were instrumental in their professional football careers.

As Holt said through tears as he read Kerr’s letter to him, it was the first time he had heard from her in four years.

Despite her determination to come back from that injury and play at the World Cup, Kerr suffered another injury in November 2015, this time in a victory over Brisbane Roar, when she ruptured her lisfranc joint and required surgery and a plate had to be inserted in her foot. It was another three months on the sidelines. However, this injury very nearly ended her career.

Yet Kerr again showed determination, dedication and desire to come back from the injury, when many were convinced that she would never play at the same level again.

It is fair to say that she has soared since then, and she has until late remained relatively injury free in her career.

It should come as no surprise that Professional athletes involved in high-performance sport are at a high injury risk. Or that 39% are likely to suffer an injury in a previously injured area.

As a result of the issues surrounding concussion in sport it is interesting to note that now in many countries sporting injuries can be classified as occupational injuries, because elite athletes are contracted or remunerated employees in sport organisations. However, under the legislation in most developed countries employees are responsible for notifying their employer of occupational injuries. Something that a recent survey found was not happening.

The four main reasons that this did not happen were as follows:

• Elite athletes do not think that their injuries are serious enough to report.
• Elite athletes do not realise that they are actually injured.
• Elite athletes do not disclose sporting injuries because of pressure from coaches, teammates, fans and parents.
• Elite athletes report the injury as regulated, but the injury disclosure is then underestimated by the management staff

Female athletes are up to six times more likely than their male counterparts to rupture their ACL. This is the ligament that connects the bottom of the thighbone (femur) to the top of the shinbone (tibia). There have been numerous studies into why this is the case, but no definitive answer has been found as yet. Is there a greater likelihood of a female athlete suffering this injury when she is menstrating, is one study that has been carried out. Childhood activity and whether young girls have enough robust activity to build strength has been another. Hopefully an answer will be found soon.

For Sam Kerr the last six months must have been extremely frustrating from an injury perspective. She injured her left calf prior to the FIFA Women’s World Cup hosted by Australia, and had to sit out the opening three games. She later revealed that she suffered a second calf injury during Australia’s World Cup campaign, injuring her right leg in the third-place play-off defeat against Sweden.

Kerr was then forced to miss Australia’s international friendlies against Canada in Langford and Vancouver in December because of a right foot injury. Kerr scored a goal in Chelsea’s 5-2 win over Leicester City in the Women’s Super League before being substituted after 81 minutes due to the injury.

Now she has ruptured her ACL. Incredibly the Chelsea club statement and also the press release from Football Australia do not confirm which knee she has injured and had the operation on. NTFS did email the press office at Chelsea but has not received a reply. Judging by photos of Kerr post operation it would appear that it is her right leg.

There has been plenty of preposterous reporting saying that Kerr faces a race to be ready for the Olympic Games in July. Medical experts will tell you that this is not going to happen, which means that the writers were simply looking to create clickbait.

As someone pointed out when a story surfaced that coach Tony Gustavsson may take Kerr simply to take a penalty if required, the coach made a rod for his own back when he selected Kyah Simon for the World Cup in Australia when irrespective as to whether she was fit from her own ACL recovery, she injured her calf prior to the selection cut off and was unlikely to recover and didn’t. When defending her selection the coach claimed that she suffered a “minor” setback before he announced his squad, and then explained, “then after the window (closed), she had another setback, where she was just able to take a PK (penalty).”

This was ridiculous at the time and has understandably made those who don’t follow the game assume that the coach will do the same come Paris.

His selection of Simon was foolish, and as many asked at the time what kind of message did it send to fit, younger, ambitious, albeit less experienced players?

What was sad during the World Cup was that so much focus was on one player, and it remains so today. This has been a trend with Football Australia, when Harry Kewell was promoted above his contemporaries, who were equally deserving of the limelight. Then we saw it with Tim Cahill and his ridiculous selection for the 2018 World Cup, when his career was over. How must the likes of captain Mile Jedinak, Aaron Mooy, and Tom Rogic have felt? In a team sport it is never wise to promote one player over the rest.

If one rises due to their performances they will attract attention of their own, meaning that you do not need to fuel that fire, and you have the opportunity to push others forward.

The Women’s world cup became a media circus. Sam Kerr was clearly pushed to the front and was the focus. Was this all part of Football Australia’s branding? Was it a lazy Australian media who know very little about football? Or was it her management ensuring that she stay front and centre even if she was not playing? You rarely see this in any other team sport. You rarely see it to such an extent in football.

There is no doubting that Sam Kerr is one of, if not the best strikers in the world, but one player does not make a team. This was evidenced at the World Cup in Australia where the team went out and played some wonderful football without their superstar captain. They showed that if you play as a team anything is possible. Yet throughout the tournament all of the media attention was on Kerr. Which must have been disappointing and frustrating for the players performing on the pitch.

Kerr entered the fray at the World Cup for the first time in Australia’s round of 16 match against Denmark in the 80th minute. Australia was already 2-0 up thanks to goals from Caitlin Foord and Hayley Raso, and that would be the final score.

In the quarter final against France the game finished 0-0. Kerr came on in the 55th minute in this match, but was unable to turn the game in the hour and five minutes she was on the pitch with extra time.

In the semi-final she started for the first time. England took the lead and Kerr scored a stunning goal to pull them level after half time, but England would find two more goals, and march on to the final.

In the bronze medal match against Sweden, Kerr started again as you would expect as captain, but Australia would go down 2-0.

Reading the press over the past week Australia’s Olympic medal hopes are gone. Why? Just because one player is injured? Looking at the performances at the World Cup this group of players showed that they can play well as a unit, even if their star player is not there. In fact a cruel statistic from the World Cup is that the two games Sam Kerr started, Australia lost; they only lost one other game at the tournament, in their pool against Nigeria.

There is a saying in sport that “there is no i in team.” The inference is that no one player is bigger than the team. The Matildas showed that at the World Cup, so why are so many already righting off the team’s chances at the Olympic Games?

These players deserve a little more respect, for what they achieved as a group. It must be so demoralising to see one player stealing the headlines away from your performance, even if it is not that player’s fault. Then post the World Cup, you read that your coach wants to leave, that he has applied for the USA Women’s National coaching role and the Sweden men’s position.

For many the jury is out as to whether Tony Gustavsson is a good coach. When did he make a tactical change that changed the game in the World Cup? These young women with their performances certainly enhanced his reputation, but again it must be galling seeing him bask in the limelight and look to benefit from those performances.

Everyone wishes Sam Kerr well and hopes that he rehabilitation goes well, but let her get on with that long road back on her own. give her some space and time to work on her recovery.

It is time to focus on the national team, those fit to play and not one player who isn’t. As Kerr’s Chelsea coach Emma Hayes stated “our focus has to be on the fit players. We have a quality squad and the challenge for me as a coach is to find those solutions. I trust in our squad, while the focus and the attention has to be on the players who are here.”

The same has to apply to the Matildas and their Olympic Games qualifiers and then the Games themselves if they qualify. In sport injuries happen and when they do they create opportunities for other players. There are more superstars in the making within the Matildas team as we have seen with the likes of Mary Fowler, Kyra Cooney-Cross, Courtnee Vine and Alex Chidiac to name a handful. Time to focus on them and their team mates, for the game continues. As they say in show business, the show must go on, no matter who is injured.