By her own admission, Lisa de Vanna was not an obvious choice to be one of two women to lead her country at a major international tournament.
But earlier this year, the Matildas’ coach, Alen Stajcic, had the foresight to look beyond the veteran striker’s reputation as a difficult character with a history of insubordinate behaviour and instead focused on a player whose passion for the game and her country, not to mention ample amounts of skill, could inspire others around her.
De Vanna, with Clare Polkinghorne, were handed the captaincy of the Australian team before the 2015 edition of the Women’s World Cup; they, and the women’s game, never looked back.
The Matildas staged a glorious, thrilling run to the quarter-finals in Canada – a feat the men’s side has yet to achieve – along the way captivating a nation which was previously, generally speaking, yet to be entirely convinced of the merits of the women’s game.
Post-tournament, some doubters remain but the outlook for women’s football in Australia has never been rosier, with no little thanks to De Vanna.
“I definitely did not expect to be co-captain,” De Vanna tells Guardian Australia, as a remarkable year for her and her team-mates draws to a close. “When the coach told me I actually cried. Obviously I’m not the ideal captain given my past, but I did a lot of changing and a lot of soul-searching.”
De Vanna admits she “didn’t go through the right channels” in her life and the well-documented difficulties of a tough upbringing in Perth could easily have seen her stray down the wrong path. As it was, her love of football – and the support of good friends and family – ensured she went down the right track, which first led her to Adelaide at a young age and then to Melbourne.
Yet the firebrand character she forged in Fremantle stayed with her. Stories of fluctuating interest levels in the game, occasional failures to show for training and the disruptive behaviour that led to her expulsion from a Matildas’ training camp before the 2011 World Cup are proof that “bad Lisa” could at any time pop up to overshadow the achievements of “good Lisa”.
Now, at the end of 2015, there is a whole lot more of the latter incarnation to enjoy. De Vanna insists she has come a long way since those unpredictable days; she says she is a different character, that she has been on a journey of change. And there is no doubting the significance of the decision Stajcic made in the creation of the De Vanna we see today.
“When you’re given a big role like that, that’s a big belief,” she says. “It changed me completely, what I do – on the field, off the field, how I talk to people, how I approach things. You’ve been given such a big honour. Not many people get to captain the team, a successful team. Obviously there was a lot of pressure. You don’t want to be the captain who didn’t lead their team to victory. You get the highs and lows of it but the fact he gave me so much belief and put trust in me and Clare as co-captains meant a lot.”
Even so, De Vanna doesn’t rate being handed the Australian armband as the defining moment of what has been a remarkable past 12 months for her, a stark indication of exactly how much she achieved in 2015. Not only did she captain her country and lead the Matildas to the quarter-finals in Canada, she also made the tournament’s All-Star team, won a 100th international cap, scored against the world champions, secured a transfer to Melbourne City and subsequently helped her new club go the entire W-League season to date unbeaten.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the single-minded focus and dedication to a team ethic that has been the bedrock on which her success has been built throughout the year, De Vanna has no doubts in her mind about her proudest achievement. “The Brazil game,” she says, without flinching. “And how it changed women’s football in Australia.”
She is, of course, referring to the last 16 World Cup match in June, which Australia won 1-0 to book a place in the quarters. If the Matildas had flown under the radar before that match against one of the best teams in the world – settled by Kyah Simon’s late winner, slotted home after De Vanna’s shot had been fumbled by the Brazilian keeper – there was no ignoring them afterwards.
The result in Moncton was the first time an Australian team had won a knockout phase game at a World Cup and gave Australia their first ever tournament win over the football-mad South American nation. It was a genuine watershed moment for women’s football in Australia.
The significance of the victory was not lost on De Vanna at the time, although typically she was already thinking of taking the next step. “I had an idea [of what it meant], but I didn’t get caught up in the moment because I knew that if we went one step further to a semi-final position it would have just been massive back home.”
It wasn’t to be. Reigning champions Japan lay in wait in the quarter-finals and the Matildas were sent packing. Nevertheless, the impact of their run in Canada was already being felt back in Australia. The profile of women’s football had never been more prominent and off the back of the Matildas’ success the lobby for increased pay more commensurate with a full-time job gained momentum.
It was a debate that would rage for much of the remainder of the year, and one which De Vanna became embroiled in after the Matildas effectively went on strike as talks between Professional Footballers Australia, the players union, and FFA stalled over a new collective bargaining agreement. A planned tour to the US was cancelled, but De Vanna’s deep-seated love of playing for her country stopped her from joining the picket line.
The issue was potentially divisive enough to have wrecked many dressing rooms, but when De Vanna met up with her team-mates on subsequent tours to China and South Korea, once the boycott had ended and an interim deal had been agreed, there were no hard feelings. “The girls know exactly what I’m about,” says De Vanna. “I always want to play for my country, that’s a big thing for me. So do they. I understand where they were coming from, and they understand where I was coming from.
“What they did and what they fight for shows what sort of characters they are and what type of personality they have on the field as well. There was no [bad blood] once it was addressed. These issues needed to be addressed, it was such a big issue. Once they heard my side of the story, they understood where I came from.
“I’m 31 years old. I don’t know when my last game’s going to be. I always want to play for my country, so it was hard for me because I’m always up for a challenge and wanted to play against the best team in the world. The girls wanted to [as well], but at the same time they felt they needed to make a stand and I support them and they support me and it was just a miscommunication at the time.”
De Vanna did, at least, get to face the much-vaunted US team earlier in the year, in the Matildas’ opening group stage game at the World Cup. It was a landmark moment for De Vanna – she reached a century of appearances for her country – and she got her name on the scoresheet, but the result, a 3-1 defeat, meant the occasion was disappointingly bittersweet.
“It would have been the icing on the cake to beat the US on your 100th cap, but it wasn’t the fairytale ending I wanted,” she says. “But the performance for about 60 minutes was world class. I had mixed emotions when I got off the field but the messages and support from fans was overwhelming. It was great but it was also a bit disappointing because we played so well against the US but didn’t get the outcome we wanted.”
Listening to De Vanna, her passion for the game is abundantly clear. She simply loves playing football – it’s been coursing through her veins since she was a kid kicking a ball about with her brothers on the streets of Fremantle and has remained with her ever since, on a nine-year journey that has taken her to 13 club sides on three continents. The latest stop on her travels is Melbourne City, the W-League newcomers for whom De Vanna signed post-World Cup from Melbourne Victory.
City may be the new kids on the block, but the impact the club has made on the W-League in their short existence has been phenomenal. De Vanna, who stayed loyal to coach John Montemurro in following him across town from Victory, has never seen a more professional outfit in all her time in the game. Thoroughly impressive off the pitch, the club’s class is showing in results on the field – City have won every one of their nine games this season, scoring 31 and conceding just three. They sit pretty atop the ladder and a maiden title in their debut season appears to be a formality.
Yet the club’s early dominance of the competition has, curiously, attracted criticism from some quarters and there have been suggestions City’s financial clout and unprecedented recruitment drive during the off-season will ultimately prove detrimental to the league.
It’s not a view De Vanna subscribes to. “This is where I’m a little bit confused,” she says. “We complain that we want more money, better facilities and to be treated like a professional, but we complain when a team does that. For me, they’ve done the right thing, they’ve looked after us. It’s time for other clubs to step up and do what City does if things are to change and grow.”
It’s difficult to imagine how an athlete who has achieved so much during one calendar year could possibly improve in the next, but in all likelihood De Vanna, who says she never entertains complacency and always strives for more, will be adding a third W-League title to her palmarès early in the new year. Beyond that, an arduous qualification campaign for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games awaits.
The Matildas must play five matches in 10 days, including clashes against Japan and North Korea, and come in the top two of the six-team round-robin tournament in Osaka if they are to make it to Rio, which unlike the men’s tournament is open-age and considered on a par with the World Cup. It’s a tough assignment, and one that, typically, is all-consuming for the patriotic De Vanna.
“Qualifying for the Olympics is the only thing I can think of at the moment,” she admits. “I’m telling you now, if we qualify for the Olympics, we’ll come home with a medal. No federation has to go through what we’re going through, with the teams we’re playing with only two spots.
“I’ll make sure we come back with a medal.”
