Mackenzie Arnold couldn’t stop smiling in her post-match press conference after Australia had made history on Saturday with their win over France.
The Hammers No1 played a starring role as her country reached the semi-finals of the Women’s World Cup for the first time in their history – with Arnold making three penalty saves in the shootout and picking up the Player of the Match award.
After a very tense and cagey 120 minutes in Brisbane with the scoreline still locked at 0-0, the dreaded penalty shootout would decide who was going to make it into the final four of the competition.
Arnold has built up a reputation for saving spot kicks with the Hammers over recent years. She saved two in one game in a Barclays Women’s Super League match against Manchester City back in May 2021, and more recently, denied former Club teammate Alisha Lehmann from the spot against Aston Villa in October 2022.
Now, she was doing it on the biggest stage in front of nearly 50,000 at Suncorp Stadium, as she denied Selma Bacha, Ève Périsset and another former Hammer, Kenza Dali twice from the spot, with the penalty being retaken after Arnold was adjudged to have moved too far off her line.
In between those superb saves, Arnold stepped up to take Australia’s fifth spot kick. She saw her effort crash off the post, but showed great resilience to pick herself back up again and be the hero by denying Périsset and Dali moments later.
The goalkeeper had experienced an incredible range of emotions, and she explained how she was feeling to journalists at the post-match press conference in Brisbane.
“I’m still processing everything, and I think it might take me a couple of days to figure everything out,” she told reporters. “It was just an unreal night, I’m speechless right now.
“I was incredibly disappointed to know that I could have won the game for the girls and to have missed that penalty, but the way that my teammates rallied around me and kept me in it was incredible.
“At the end of the day, my job is to keep the ball out of the net, and thankfully I could do that for them. We all do it for each other out there, and I’m glad my teammates have my back 100%.”
SUPER MAC! 🙌
— West Ham United Women (@westhamwomen) August 12, 2023
An incredible performance in the shootout as @TheMatildas reach the semi-finals of a World Cup for the first time! 👏 pic.twitter.com/QQ7YZqeitc
Arnold had to deal with facing Dali from the spot not once, but twice after her infringement on the goal line. Having already been on a yellow card, she explained what was going through her mind at that point.
“It was quite stressful for me,” she explained. “I knew I couldn’t change my technique and I had to believe in myself and know that what I was doing was right. There was a little bit of mind games in there, trying to figure out whether she would go the same side or change.
“We’ve used these situations in training and worked on scenarios like this, and luckily I was able to get the job done for the girls on that occasion.”
It was a night that will be forever etched into Australian sporting history, and whilst Arnold knew the significance of what it would mean to reach the final four, she tried to detach that from her mind during the shootout.
“I definitely ignore that noise when I’m in the zone. I don’t want to get ahead of myself and as a team we always take one game at a time. We keep taking it one step at a time, and now that we’ve reached the semi-final we can take a minute to actually process what we’ve been able to achieve.
“It’s a quick turnaround, so we will review things tomorrow and then go again ready for the next game.”
Australia will face England in their semi-final clash on Wednesday 16 August at Stadium Australia in Sydney. The game will be broadcast live in the UK on BBC One and iPlayer from 11:30am BST.
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