Women’s World Cup: Captain, icon, record-breaker – who is Sam Kerr?

While it’s natural to assume Kerr has been playing the round-ball game since a tender age, there was a time when she did not envisage picking it up at all.

Born in the Australian rules football-mad city of Perth in Western Australia, Kerr spent her formative years playing that sport – inspired by her father Roger and brother Daniel, who both played at the highest level.

With a lack of options for girls, Kerr never looked out of place in the boys’ competition and starred in many matches up to the age of 12, when she was no longer allowed to play beside them for safety reasons.

There is now a viable semi-professional women’s league – AFLW – for young girls to aspire to, but it wasn’t the case back in 2005.

So she took her talents to football.

“The rug was ripped out underneath me,” she reflected prior to the World Cup.

After a successful stint with her local club, she came to the attention of W-League side Perth Glory in 2008, and made her debut during the 2009 season.

She went on to win the players’ player and goal of the year awards and was rewarded with selection in the national side. She made her debut as a substitute against Italy at the age of 15, before the first of her three World Cups aged 17.

A decade later, Kerr has already etched her name into the history books and is not going away anytime soon.