An argument can be made that, heading into a once-in-a-lifetime Women's World Cup on home soil, Katrina Gorry is Australia's most indispensable player.
Positioned at the base of midfield, the 30-year-old acts as the team's lynchpin, giving the Matildas a point of reference in possession and a much-needed ability to dictate the game's tempo.
However, to reduce the former Asian Player of the Year to just the sum of her parts as a footballer is to do her a disservice. It discounts the evolution of character and sense of self that Gorry explores in Disney's upcoming "Matildas: The World at Our Feet" documentary series; the metamorphosis she has undertaken as a person ever since she made the decision to go it alone and -- without a partner or any family in the same hemisphere -- pursue her dreams of motherhood through IVF.
"I knew I always wanted to be a mom," Gorry explained. "I knew that was kind of the missing piece of the puzzle. I was playing over in Norway when COVID hit. I was really sad because we normally have a lot of family come over and visit me.
"I didn't really know the IVF process very well. I didn't have a partner to talk it out. At that time, I didn't tell any of my family that I was going through it. I was really just keeping it to myself. I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want them to talk me out of it."
Starting IVF while on the books of Avaldsnes in Norway in early 2021, Gorry was implanted with an embryo just hours before jumping on a flight back to Australia to re-join A-League Women side Brisbane Roar. The midfielder learned that the implantation had resulted in a pregnancy while undergoing Australia's then-mandatory 14-day quarantine period.
Playing with the Roar until she hit 12 weeks, Gorry then took time off, watching on as Australia progressed to the bronze medal game of the re-organised Tokyo Olympics, before giving birth to baby Harper in August 2021.
Just weeks later, Gorry was back doing pilates. Within months, she was running. By December, she was back playing -- and excelling -- with the Roar. Her mother Linda accompanied Gorry around the country to help her look after her new arrival, celebrating in the AAMI Park stands with Harper in January as her mother put in a match-winning performance against Melbourne Victory, marking her first goal since returning to play with a "rock-the-baby" celebration.
A call-up for the Matildas' Asian Cup campaign in India followed, one Gorry declined as, with COVID still hanging overhead, it was too soon. A call for the subsequent series against New Zealand, however, was much more suitable and she's been a cornerstone of Gustavsson's side ever since.
"Birth is just the most amazing, incredible, and hardest thing that a human will ever do," Gorry said.
"Holding Harper in my arms for the first time, it was just the most special and amazing and most fulfilling moment that I've ever had."
Gorry is one of several players that are integral to the way the Matildas work; the likes of Sam Kerr, Caitlin Foord and Steph Catley also bring their own important contributions that can never quite be replicated. But, in relation to the way that the side has come to operate as a collective under coach Tony Gustavsson in recent times, its ability to function in possession has largely come to rely on the innate intelligence and bravery that the diminutive 30-year-old possesses both with and without the ball.
"Tell me who your No. 6 is, and I'll tell you the playing style," Gustavsson once declared. Well, Gorry is the Swede's six, and he'd be the first to admit how vitally important supporting her throughout her return to football has been.
Indeed, players that juggle the demands of professional careers with motherhood still represent a small minority in the game, but it's a rapidly growing cohort. Women's football is often characterised as a movement, and one of the key gains that have been made in its long but undeniable march forward has been surrounding the working rights and conditions afforded to mothers.
The progress made by the Matildas in recent years, and the current dynamics of the squad, illustrates that more than most.
"To see how a person and a player can combine being a world-class mom with being a world-class footballer at the same time, and that professionalism to know when to go in and out of that mindset, is amazing," Gustavsson said. "It's not a disturbance, it's an add-on.
"If there's something kids are experts on, it's living here and now and it helps the people around them to do the same thing."
Gorry's teammate Tameka Yallop and her partner Kirsty, herself a former New Zealand international, welcomed daughter Harley Rose in August 2020. The Matildas documentary captures the first occasion that the pair were able to bring their daughter into an Australian national team camp.
"We've been really lucky with Tony coming in and wanting to progress the environment to welcome families in -- to welcome Kirsty and Harley in," said Yallop.
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"Kirsty knows what it's like to be in a high-performance environment but now being a mother as well she also knows how important that balance is.
"It is definitely the time for progression and the time to sort of realise that women are capable of so much and it's really positive to see."
Currently, under the terms of the Matildas' collective bargaining agreement, Australia's contracted players who are the primary carer of an infant are entitled to 12 months of paid parental leave. Secondary carers of a child, meanwhile, are entitled to paid parental leave for the duration of one national team window in which they would ordinarily have been selected, and all contracted players are entitled to return to the national setup upon the conclusion of their leave contingent upon medical clearance.
In addition, players that are the primary carers of their child are also supported through flights, accommodation, and other travel-related expenses for their child and an associated carer until the child is two years of age.
It's a far cry from the lack of support that effectively ended the international career of Matildas legend, and now Football Australia board member, Heather Garriock, or gave Melissa Barbieri a mountain to climb in her attempts to return to the team for the 2015 Women's World Cup.
"Athletes perform at their best when they have certainty in their careers and when their wellbeing is safeguarded," PFA co-chief executive Kate Gill told ESPN. "This is an athlete-focused policy that has helped to establish a culture of inclusivity and support in Australian football.
"It recognises the importance of family in the lives of the players, while normalising players becoming parents and ensuring they have adequate support off the pitch and opportunity on it."
At a global level, FIFA regulations that came into effect in January 2021 dictate that players are entitled to a minimum of 14 weeks paid maternity leave -- with at least eight weeks after birth -- paid at the equivalent of two-thirds of their salary. The regulations also enshrine a player's right to return to football after the end of their maternity leave, with clubs under an obligation to reintegrate them into their programs and provide adequate and ongoing medical support.
Earlier this year, Sara Bjork Gunnarsdottir successfully sued her former club Lyon in a landmark maternity pay case, with the global federation ordering the French outfit to pay Gunnarsdottir's full salary of more than €82,000, plus interest, in their ruling.
United States star Alex Morgan gave birth to daughter Charlie in May 2020, just under a year after she helped her nation win back-to-back World Cups. Now, three years on, her scoring rate is effectively a goal-a-game for the San Diego Wave in the NWSL and will be headed to the World Cup in July as the USWNT begin their quest for an unprecedented threepeat on football's biggest stage. The U.S. women's national team's collective bargaining agreement, amongst other guarantees, includes maternity leave and paid nanny care.
"It's certainly gotten better," two-time World Cup winning coach Jill Ellis, who is now president of Morgan's club San Diego, told ESPN. "I credit the U.S., and this is before I was even the coach, we've historically had the support and meaning.
"Can it get better? Of course, I think it can get better.
"I think it's still even greater awareness and probably even more funding. Here, one of the mandates in our league is that we as a club, provide a nanny for a player.
"It's making sure that when we travel, we provide a ticket for the nanny and the young child. Those are things that I think we're still very behind on across the globe. But I see that I see there are changes coming.
"So there's legislation, there's a movement and I think we just need to continue to push."
Gustavsson, an assistant to Ellis during her two successful World Cups, concurs.
"You don't have to sacrifice your career as a footballer, even if you've chosen to be a mom," he said. "You really can do both."
