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Tonight’s match will be a particularly special one for goalkeeper Lydia Williams, who announced earlier this year that she will be retiring from the national team after an incredible 19-year career with the Matildas.
It’s difficult to overstate just how crucial Williams has been to the growth of women’s football in Australia. She’s been the country’s longest-serving goalkeeper ever (men or women), making it to five Women’s World Cups, six Asian Cups, and two Olympics since her first senior cap in 2005.
Behind the scenes, Williams has also been an incredible advocate for growing the women’s game, especially in her capacity with the players’ union, Professional Footballers Australia (PFA), which she is the Vice President of.
But she’s 36 years old now, and her body is breaking down. An ankle injury put a premature end to her most recent A-League Women season with Melbourne Victory, and has accepted that there are goalkeepers coming in behind her that she now needs to make space for.
“I’m just at that point where I’ve sacrificed everything for football and it’s given me so much, and it’s time that I let it be open for the next group,” she told the Sydney Morning Herald.
“It would be selfish for me to try to hold on as much as I can when it’s past my time. Mentally, I can keep going. But physically, the demands of modern-day football now are so much more than when I first began, and my body just can’t continue.
“I talked with the girls, and talked with my mum and family and friends, because they’ve been the ones who have copped me missing out on things and putting them second.
“When they gave the all clear, it was an easy decision to put someone else first for a change. I don’t really want to picture my last game with the girls because we’ve been through so much together, but it has to happen.”
This will be her last game on home soil, and she will be honoured not just with a start between the sticks for the final time in front of her home fans, but also a special ceremony before the match by another First Nations legend of Australian sport.
And her Matildas team-mates have honoured her in their own little way, all of them wearing “Williams 1” warm-up shirts before the match.
You can read a bit more about Lydia’s story in this feature story I wrote about her before last year’s World Cup, from growing up in the deserts of Kalgoorlie to emerging with Canberra United to travelling the world, only to come right back to where it all started as she tried to reconnect with her country and herself.
Do you have any lasting memories of Lydia Williams? Log in and share them so we can all have a little cry together.