Game Day!!

Hey everyone!! Its Jillian, I wanted to write about our first game in Australia.

Ever since we got off the plane and landed in Australia, all we could hear about was our first game. Our first game was in a week's time and it was against big time rival Sydney FC. During that week we heard everything about our upcoming opponent, and when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING. It was all anyone could talk about, their thoughts and feelings on different players, potential starting lineups, and what we needed to do in order to be successful. The days building up to the game were just mad, nevertheless, we, the Americans, had four or five training sessions with the team. In those five practices we were trying to feel out our team's style, get used to the tendencies of the players around us, and learn all the set pieces, both offensively and defensively; all the while we were still trying to learn everyone's names and adjust to the fourteen hour time change (practice was at 630 pm AUS time, 430 am US time.)

Finally, game day was here!! I woke up in the morning, made breakfast, got all my things packed and ready to go, read the bible, and then it was time to go meet the team at the bus. Thankfully it was only a 30 minute bus ride to the Sydney stadium, I don't think I would have lasted my longer, by the time we got there I was so pumped up I wanted to take the feel straight away. Unfortunately we got there about two hours early, so we walked the field, inspecting the grass and feeling so small in a stadium that could hold 80,000.

After a short warm-up and a final pregame discussion it was finally time to take the field. We were dressed and ready to go, just waiting on the refs to walk us out to the field from our locker room. Too focused on my over sized goalkeeper jersey and my tight long swim trunks that I had on, I wasn't paying attention and tripped walking up the stairs and fell flat on my face, it was quite embarrassing; I fell in front of not only my new teammates but also the entire other team and the refs, typical Jill though.

We took the field, the whistle blew, and the battle began. It was a hard fought match from both teams from beginning to end, all ninety minutes were absolutely chaotic. Twelve minutes into the match, Michelle connected on a header that floated over the keepers head to make the score 1-0. For the rest of the half it was back and forth, both teams having solid scoring opportunities, however we went into halftime still up by a goal. Halftime passed quickly and we were thrown right back into battle. Unfortunately, my former roommate in St. Louis Sara Walsh, finished a breakaway two minutes into the second half to make it 1-1. Twenty minutes later Michelle scored once again and in the last moments of the game Kele added another, making it a 3-1 victory over Sydney FC.

As the final whistle blew, all the girls ran on the field and congratulated each other on a great win, they were all so excited, I was mainly excited just that the game was finally over, I really just wanted to lay down on the field I was so exhausted. I made my way over to the team where hugs, high fives, and cheers of excitement were shared. We got back to the locker room and I immediately sat down and got ice, yes I'm getting old. As I impatiently waited for the ice to freeze off my leg, I sat there and soaked up the moment. Songs were blaring from the stereo as the girls sang and danced around, emotions were still running high from the recent victory ; we were all still dressed in our uniforms that were coated with mud and filled with grass stains from the hard fought battle, still dressed with smiles from ear to ear. It was a great moment.

Before the game, we (the Americans), spoke of wanting to play well just for the girls on our team. The game meant so much to them, it seemed as though they had been preparing for the whole preseason month just for this game, that's how important it was to them. They wanted to prove all the nay sayers wrong, all the people that said they were an automatic win wrong, all the people that ever doubted them wrong. Despite what anyone said, every single one of them knew we were going to win; every player knew that they would do absolutely anything to win that game, they all believed we were going to win, and we did just that, the underdog prevailed. So after the game, even though we were all so tired and exhausted, and I couldn't feel my legs, the feeling was purely incredible; being able to fight together, giving every bit of ourselves to that game, winning, accomplishing it all together... was amazing.