Alanna Kennedy
Professional soccer player for the Matildas - Road to Rio Ep. #2
Listen to this Episode:
Background:Alanna Kennedy is a top class defender for the Australian women’s football team, the Matildas.
I spoke to her after the team recently qualified for their first Olympics in 12 years after winning the Asian Qualifying Tournament in Japan. It was a remarkable campaign which has the country excited for what the Matildas can possibly achieve. The team is currently ranked 5th on the planet.
At this point, Alanna had played over 40 times for the green & gold and she’s just 21 years young. Her excellent performances for Australia are capturing international interest. She has just signed a contract to join the Western New York Flash in the National Women’s Soccer League. We also spoke about her preparations as she gets ready to play the jogo bonito in Brazil at the Olympics.
Background:Alanna Kennedy is a top class defender for the Australian women’s football team, the Matildas.
I spoke to her after the team recently qualified for their first Olympics in 12 years after winning the Asian Qualifying Tournament in Japan. It was a remarkable campaign which has the country excited for what the Matildas can possibly achieve. The team is currently ranked 5th on the planet.
At this point, Alanna had played over 40 times for the green & gold and she’s just 21 years young. Her excellent performances for Australia are capturing international interest. She has just signed a contract to join the Western New York Flash in the National Women’s Soccer League. We also spoke about her preparations as she gets ready to play the jogo bonito in Brazil at the Olympics.
Full Transcript
This was transcribed and therefore might contain a few typos. With some long episodes, it's difficult to catch some minor errors. Enjoy!
Abid Imam: Alanna, welcome to the Road to Rio Alanna Kennedy: How are you going? Thanks for having me on. Abid Imam: If we can fast forward to the successful Olympic qualifying tournament for the Matildas and the first game against regional rivals Japan in Osaka, a team who defeated you in the Quarter Finals of the World Cup in Canada last June, you beat them 3-1 in a remarkable display. How did you tactically approach that game? and what kind of tweaks did you make from that World Cup experience? Alanna Kennedy: I think if you look back to the game in the World Cup, we just backed off a lot defensively and made the field huge, which made us have to do extra work. So, I think we were looking to tighten up in our defence all over the pitch and just being a little aggressive with that off the ball and then on the ball usually takes care of itself with the attacking threats that we have. So, I think the aggression in our defence was the difference. Abid Imam: I feel like that result really catapulted the Matildas to the forefront of the national sporting headlines. You got everyone really excited for the games. Your schedule for the qualification tournament had 5 games in 9 days, which is a really strenuous load. To give people some context. Leading sports medicine practitioners recommend players get a minimum of 72 hours rest between games to recover adequately. What were your recovery routines and techniques between the games? What sort of support team did you have behind you? Alanna Kennedy: As soon as the games were over, we’d get back to the hotel and jump in an ice bath. The next morning, a little bit of a sleep in. As soon as we were up at around 11 or something, we’d have a pool session with the girls who played and stretching and rolling session later in the afternoon. Medical staff were all over it. They were on top of everything. Without them, I guess the recovery process would have been a lot harder and I don’t know if we would have had as many bodies on the field as we did. Abid Imam: You could see that the matildas are a very well-conditioned team, but along with that there were a lot of all-round athletic ability on display. This leads me to ask if there were any other sports you did at a younger age? Alanna Kennedy: Yeah, I actually played soccer since I was 4 or 5, but along with that I did athletics. The two of them were both my favourite sports and high jump was me go-to event actually in athletics. I guess all the jumping events, high jump, hurdles, long jump all of that sort of thing. It probably came to a point around 12 or 13 where I decided I had to make a decision on one of the sports and I guess soccer being a team sport, I really enjoyed that. That’s where I made the switch to just soccer, but I am sure I know a lot of the girls have similar stories playing different sports and just loving being involved in different sports at a young age. Abid Imam: You played the North Koreans in a game where you secured the result to gain qualification. I’ve talked to a couple of Socceroos players who say it is an interesting cultural experience playing against that nation. Was their much interaction with your North Korean opponents’ post-game in terms of swapping jerseys and the like? Alanna Kennedy: Ahh no there was no interaction at all really. Yeah, none (laughs) Abid Imam: I can understand because that was the game where the celebrations kicked off for you too. You could see the outpouring of emotions. Alen Stajcic was there, your coach, soaking it up which must have been satisfying g for him. What would you say is his footballing philosophy for the Matildas, what are some of the themes he repeats all the time at team talks? Alanna Kennedy: I think leading into the tournament we just had was a lot of emphasis on the aggression in our defence, which I touched on earlier, I guess, just a lot of cultural background behind it all, you know that we want to sort of label ourselves as a family and we are a really tight knit group and I think when you are around the team so often, it’s important you have high team morale. That’s something that I think contributed hugely to our success on the field. I guess those were the main things and just being positive and believing we can beat some of the best teams in the world and we can be in amongst the top 5 in the world as well. Abid Imam: Looking at a club point-of-view where you’ve had some even more exciting news, recently signing for the Western New York Flash in the National Women’s Soccer League, the top flight of US women’s football. How did that opportunity eventuate? Do you know how you came onto their radar initially? Alanna Kennedy: I think it was probably around the World Cup time. I was actually looking to head over there after the World Cup last year, but the timing was a bit off and I decided just to head home instead. I stayed in contact with the team and the club, so I guess they wanted to sign me this year which was great. Obviously, I want to get the experience overseas and it’s a great club at Flash. I’ve heard good things about it and I am really looking forward to getting over there. Abid Imam: You touched on the World Cup which was a fantastic tournament last year in Canada. It was great but there were a few really strong viewpoints on the artificial turf. Now that you’ve had that experience and played on it, what were your thoughts? Alanna Kennedy: Yeah, looking back before we went to the World Cup, there was a lot of talk about the AstroTurf. But once you know it’s not going to change things. We trained every session on the AstroTurf and adapted to that. I guess there is a definite difference playing on AstroTurf compared to grass and I think that showed a lot when we played Japan. I don’t know whether people back home would realise or not, but the field was unbelievably hot playing on the turf and I think that contributed to our tired legs. Definitely, it wasn’t ideal, but I think as professional athletes, you have to adapt to those things and just take it as it comes, and that’s what we did. Abid Imam: Before we leave you, how does your build up to Rio play out now with the Western New York Flash and the Matildas? What are the new few big milestones? Alanna Kennedy: I’ll be heading over to the Flash in the next week with pre-season at the moment. So, we’ll be training hard over there. I guess, when we can, we’ll get the team together, probably only a couple of times before the Olympics and try to get some games under our belt if we can. It’s obviously hard with being in-season, but I think we’ll have a couple of camps before we go. Maybe if we can get released by our teams, otherwise we’ll be training hard at our clubs and you know it’s a great league over in the US and some other girls over in Europe. For those girls who are back home, I am sure they’ll be training hard as well. Abid Imam: I did have a look at the fixtures for the NWSL and there seems to be a one month break during the Olympics, which will be welcomed. Hopefully they can give you some time to link up with your national team beforehand as well and you can get some intel from the US National Women’s Team players and help us defeat them hopefully in Rio. Alanna thank you so much for joining us on the Road to Rio. I’ve heard somewhere that Perth is your favourite city to play domestically, so it would be great to have you back some time either visiting or playing. For now, as they say in Brasil, Tchau. Alanna Kennedy: Thank you. Yeah, I love Perth so hopefully I can get back over there. Thanks for having me on, Tchau (laughs)