Sport
Ex-Shepparton talent Cortnee Vine sends Matildas to World Cup semi-final after scoring winning penalty
The fierce right foot of Shepparton-born talent Cortnee Vine has launched Australia into the semi-finals of the FIFA Women’s World Cup for the first time.
After 120 minutes of football superpower France and the Matildas couldn’t be separated in the quarter-final, but the girl who once called the Goulburn Valley home could.
Vine’s winning penalty during the shootout on Saturday cut the heavy tension building at Suncorp Stadium, sinking the French players to their knees and sending her and her teammates into a state of pure elation.
Matildas coach Tony Gustavsson spoke in a press conference following the match, summing up Vine and her compatriots’ performance on one of Australian football’s most famed nights.
“It’s not about the medal around your neck, it’s about the heart beating on the backside of it ― meaning it’s about heart,” he said.
“And the amount of heart and soul and passion this team showed tonight ... there’s different ways of defining success, but for, success is when you leave it all out there no matter the result.
“You play with your heart and give it your best with the crest on your chest. The players tonight, they represent so much more than 90 minutes of football.”
There’s no better advocate for the above than Vine, as her cameo was short.
But the impact? That was immediate.
With the game forced into extra-time after neither side scored inside 90 minutes, the 25-year-old entered the fold for winger Hayley Raso in the 104th minute.
A few moves later she almost ended France’s hopes of a semi-final berth prematurely.
Caitlyn Foord burst down the left hand side and fizzed a ball across the face of the box, and there to meet it was Vine.
She slid in with an outstretched leg to meet Foord’s ball, but was a mere spectator as the ball trickled past the wrong side of the post and out for a goal kick.
If that drew heavy gasps from the crowd, her final act was the roof-raiser.
With the score locked at 0-0 by the end of extra time, the game went to penalties where France would go on to score six and miss three.
Australia’s seventh was to be the winner – and up stepped Vine.
The former St Georges Road Primary School student channelled all of her composure and struck sweetly into the bottom right corner past French goalkeeper Pauline Peyraud Magnin.
And that was it, history made.
Vine and the Matildas next face England on Wednesday night, with one win all that remains between Australia and a World Cup final.