She Kicks a Beat: Sounds Like Team Spirit to Lyds (Lydia Williams interview)

Australia goalkeeper Lydia Williams, on loan at Melbourne City from Houston Dash, explains that every tour or historic moment gives the Matildas a theme tune: Nico and Vinz for the Asian Olympic qualifiers, Matoma and Becky Hill for the Olympics themselves. She was the last line of defence for quarter-final runs at the 2015 World Cup, reached after winning a race against time to return from a second knee reconstruction, and at Rio, where she saved a shootout penalty from Marta before more than 52,000 partisan supporters. Half-American through her mother, she spent a childhood visiting desert communities where her late father, an indigenous tribal elder, worked, and kept two rescued kangaroos.