Number one on Sam Kerr’s bucket list is the Women’s World Cup. Daylight is second.
“I just want to win a major tournament with the national team,” she says in the new Disney+ documentary on the Matildas. “It’s the only thing missing in my life right now.”
Sam Kerr has a huge three months ahead for club and country.Credit: Getty
But before she chases her personal holy grail in July, Kerr also has the chance to prove, once and for all, that she is the best player in the world.
Before Australia’s World Cup campaign begins, Kerr will spearhead Chelsea’s bid for a first-ever European treble. They are alive in all three major competitions: they sit within striking distance of the FA Women’s Super League title, are in the FA Cup final against Manchester United, and meet Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League semi-finals.
Kerr, 29, is consistently hailed as the world’s leading women’s player – this week, Aston Villa manager Carla Ward called her exactly that after watching her score the goal that put Chelsea in the FA Cup final at their expense – while her own coach Emma Hayes said there was no player in the sport that she’d seen with the same skill set.
But the judges of football’s two biggest individual prizes for women, the Ballon d’Or and the Best FIFA Women’s Player award, have consistently overlooked Kerr during her seasons of domestic dominance at Chelsea, favouring instead players who have won major club titles like the Champions League, or international tournaments like the World Cup. They and others won’t be fully won over until she’s won one, or both.
If that’s what it takes, then Kerr may not get a better opportunity to end the debate than over the next three months, as Chelsea aims for a clean sweep of trophies and the Matildas seek the ultimate glory on home soil.
It starts on Saturday night, where Chelsea’s women will play a rare match at Stamford Bridge for the first leg of their Champions League semi-final against Barcelona, which could see Kerr go toe-to-toe with reigning Ballon d’Or winner Alexia Putellas, who is in line to make her long-awaited comeback from an ACL injury.
Chelsea didn’t make it out of the group stage last season, and haven’t faced Barça since losing 4-0 to them in the 2021 final – after which Barcelona players and fans exhumed a two-year-old tweet from Kerr, who had lampooned their lack of competitiveness in the 2019 decider against Lyon, delighting in giving her what midfielder Patricia Guijarro said was a “taste of [her] own medicine.”
On the other side of the draw are VfL Wolfsburg and Arsenal, who have two of Kerr’s Matildas teammates on the books in Caitlin Foord and Steph Catley, and also loom as one of Chelsea’s main rivals for the FA Women’s Super League.
With six matches to go, the Blues sit in second place on the ladder – four points behind leaders Manchester United, but with two games in hand, which means they are in control of their own destiny. Arsenal are second, two points back, and face Chelsea in what could be a season-defining North London derby on May 21.
And then there’s the FA Cup final on May 14 and a return to Wembley Stadium, where Kerr scored a brace in the corresponding match last year to guide Chelsea to a 3-2 win over Manchester City and complete a domestic double. This time, it’s the red half of Manchester that stands in her way, as United aim for their first piece of top-level silverware since reviving their women’s program in 2018.
These are all formidable tasks for Chelsea, but less so thanks to Kerr’s sizzling form, inspirational leadership and relentless pursuit of excellence, which is overdue for recognition on a global level – even if she couldn’t care less about individual accolades, or where she sits in the GOAT debate, which she sheepishly side-steps in that new documentary series by effectively saying it would be un-Australian to embrace that sort of label.
No stranger to carrying her team on her back, Kerr’s importance to Chelsea has intensified due to injuries to Pernille Harder and Fran Kirby, which has forced her to take on even more attacking responsibility for much of this season, and while her goalscoring rate has slowed, with just eight from 14 WSL matches, she has often found the back of the net at pivotal moments for the team.
Sam Kerr celebrates Chelsea’s penalty shootout win over Lyon in the Champions League quarter-finals.Credit: Getty
Trebles are usually rare in football, but five of the past seven teams to have won the women’s Champions League have also taken out their domestic cups and leagues. This is an exclusive club Chelsea is desperate to join to prove they belong among Europe’s elite, and Kerr will be central to that mission.
Matildas coach Tony Gustavsson will be no doubt watching the remainder of the season unfold through the gaps in his fingers – captivated by Kerr like everyone else, but praying and hoping she gets through Chelsea’s packed schedule in one piece, given how critical she is to Australia’s World Cup hopes, and how much the national team’s attack has struggled on the few occasions they’ve had to cope with her absence.
The rest of us should sit back, soak it all in and enjoy.
So common are the morning news updates that Kerr has done something extraordinary – won another trophy, scored another hat-trick – it is easy to take for granted the magnitude of what she is achieving in club football, and the mere fact that there is an Australian footballer breathing in such exalted air, and in contention for the things she is. It may never happen again.
That she is due home at the end of it, to play in a World Cup on our shores, in a team capable of going all the way, is tantamount to Aussie football heaven.
