On November 21st, 2023, Melbourne City and Matilda fans held their collective breath. Holly McNamara - then a relatively new face in the national team setup at just twenty years of age - had ruptured the ACL in her right knee. In fact, it was the second time she'd sustained a right anterior cruciate ligament tear, and a third ACL injury in the span of a mere six years. And so, season 2023-24 in the A-League Women, where she managed to score six goals in five matches and lead the race for the Golden Boot, ended abruptly for the New South Wales-raised bolter. Five years prior, McNamara found herself in Palembang, Indonesia with a Young Matildas squad containing the likes of Kaitlyn Torpey, Amy Sayer, Karly Roestbakken and Kyra Cooney-Cross. McNamara was part of a group with much promise and potential to form the foundation of the Matildas in future years.

Whilst in the South Sumatran capital, McNamara would score once in the 29th minute of a 12-0 rout of Cambodia during the 2018 AFF Women's Championship en-route to the grand final. Unfortunately, the Australian under-20s, with Leah Blayney at the helm as head coach, would fall agonisingly short losing 3-2 to Thailand. Times, however, have changed since then. At the time of writing, Blayney serves as the assistant coach for the Japan women's national football team under their Greenlandic head coach Nils Nielsen, and McNamara is lining up for the Matildas in a friendly against Panama. This is a far cry from when her name kept appearing on the injury list at City and her career threatening to grind to a halt. Of course, with her spate of injuries came the common reiteration of articles stating the obvious "McNamara will undergo surgery..." and "No timeframe has been put on her return to football".

One key takeaway from the story of McNamara, without a doubt is a story of resilience and perseverance against the odds. Fast forward just over a year later from that fateful November day, and following 1,119 days on the sidelines, we would finally be graced with the blistering pace and presence of McNamara on a wintery Thursday afternoon in Texas in late February of this year. She replaced Caitlin Foord in the sixty-fourth minute of what would be a 4-0 shutout loss to our long-time continental rivals -Japan- at Shell Energy Stadium in Houston on opening day of the Matildas' winless SheBelieves debut campaign.

Naturally, there would be more awaiting in the pipeline for McNamara over the course of 2025. The A-League Women Golden Boot which had eluded her in season 2023-24 – going to Canberra United captain Michelle Heyman for the third time - was in the bag just one season later. This off the back of a standout 2024-25 season garnering fifteen goals, an assist in nineteen domestic league matches, and a season that also saw back-to-back Premier's Plates go Melbourne City's way.

On a Thursday in late June at HBF Park in Perth, as the seconds ticked away and regulation time made way for stoppage time, came the moment we'd all been waiting for. The pass from Sayer to Hayley Raso as she ran into the box. The subsequent cross, the flight of the ball and the diving header. Ten international caps and no goals, affectionately known as Holly Mac, after an eternity of missed shots and fluffed chances, 1,252 days since her debut against Indonesia in the Indian subcontinent way back when in January 2022, history was in the making. The Slovenian keeper tried to pounce on the ball with both hands. Every member of the 8,678-strong crowd clad in a green and gold jersey, scarves round their necks, waiting with bated breath. Every moment punctuated by the dulcet tones of former Matildas player turned play-by-play commentator, Grace Gill, calling the action on the radio with pictures. At last, relief and celebration at the fact that the summit had been reached. McNamara had scored!


Throughout my time as a fervent supporter of the Australian women's national football team and self-proclaimed Tillies tragic, I've seen my fair share of debuts and first ever international goals, but this was different. Though it was the start of the new era for the Matildas and the debut of Montemurro at the helm as head coach in our first ever meeting with Slovenia, there was an air of poignancy abound. The realisation that McNamara, only recently back at full fitness following rehabilitation of a third ACL tear in six years, could overcome a multitude of setbacks to be going strong and having her career flourish in its prime, had set in. If this could be considered her Mount Everest, who knows where she'll be headed in the next five or ten years?

The question on everyone's minds, myself included, is where to next for Holly Mac? Surely a move to a European league or the NWSL, maybe even the new Canadian Northern Super League is a given, especially with the amount of promise and potential she's shown over the last season. Is successful in doing so, she'll follow suit with Sharn Freier, Jamilla Rankin, Kahli Johnson - the list goes on - to have made the move abroad. However, any transfer talk will have to wait for now as Holly McNamara is staying on at Melbourne City for season 2025-26.