Everything went well. Australia have been in the process well, confidently ending Denmark’s stay at the World Cup, claiming the prize of a place in the quarterfinals in the process.
Sam Kerr, the player whose injury absence has weighed heavily on Australia over the past fortnight or so, is back in action, and Stadium Australia is delighted to see the country’s great star back in the green and gold. . Everything started to come together. The place trembled with possibility.
And then Kerr fell. He competes with a high ball, but doesn’t quite set his feet in the right way. He seemed to bend in a way that soccer players are generally discouraged from bending. He is down. For a beat, she stayed down. The stadium held its breath,
It was, Australia Coach Tony Gustavsson admitted, a “big decision” to give Kerr an 18-minute cameo on Monday, one that involved several meetings with the player and Australia’s medical staff. He knew it was a risk. He wondered, after Australia scored its second goal, which settled matters, whether he shouldn’t have accepted it.
At that moment, as Kerr lay on the turf, he wondered if it was the wrong call. He tried to talk to her, hurriedly asking if it would be better if she left right away. But, Kerr held out a hand to calm him down. He is fine. He had, he said, slipped; nothing more serious than that. He walked it. The people cheered, its fear dissipated.
All’s well that ends well, then, but still: Those 30 seconds served as a reminder of just how precarious Kerr’s situation — and by extension Australia’s World Cup campaign as a whole — remains: enough so delicate that he was not allowed to perform the medical team’s usual warm-down running exercise after the game. The co-host had a very different proposition with him on the sidelines. Its self-belief, to some extent, is tied to his presence. There is no point in taking too many risks. Kerr is a valuable commodity, and he should be treated as such.
