When news broke in January that Matildas captain Sam Kerr had torn her ACL, keeping her on the sidelines of the sport for the better part of the next year, a question that had been simmering in the background of Australian women's football for the past few years suddenly reached boiling-point.
How can the country's greatest ever goal-scorer be replaced? Which player is ready to step into the 30-year-old's golden shoes? Who is next in the production-line of Australian strikers?
This question was being asked even when Kerr was fit and healthy. Since the 2019 Women's World Cup, doubts were festering that the Matildas had become too reliant on the Chelsea forward, and that the team struggled to find the back of the net without her.
The 2022 Women's Asian Cup quarterfinal against South Korea was a case in point: Kerr started that game and had a handful of open-net chances which, for some reason, she failed to finish. The Matildas lost 1-0 and exited the competition at the earliest point in their history.
The question was the subtext to Kerr's calf injury on the eve of the 2023 Women's World Cup, too: how on earth would the team perform without their star player? Who else do we have waiting in the wings to take over?
While head coach Tony Gustavsson was able to rapidly shuffle the team's structure and rely more on other players like Caitlin Foord, Hayley Raso, Mary Fowler and Emily Van Egmond to step up in her place, Kerr's memorable goal against England in the semifinal — the only bright spark in an otherwise fatigued performance from the rest of the team — left many wondering how much further the Matildas could have gone had she been available the whole time.
But there is no day-by-day countdown clock on Kerr's return now, as there was last July. Today, we have certainty that she won't make a miraculously speedy recovery to be fully fit for the Olympic qualifying play-off against Uzbekistan in about two weeks, nor for the Olympic Games in Paris in just five months' time. The question has now come into full and urgent focus.
One of the slimmest silver linings to Kerr's injury, perhaps, is that it has given Gustavsson and his staff more time to pivot; to look further and deeper for the next best striker in Australia, and give them more time to prepare for one of the most scrutinised and pressurised roles for the Matildas.
There were already a couple of names swirling around who had been handed opportunities over the past two years.
Larissa Crummer, currently playing in Norway with SK Brann, was one. Remy Siemsen, who's signed for Leicester City in England, was another.
Emily Gielnik, now with Melbourne Victory, had a chance back in 2022, while Kyah Simon, who'd been controversially selected for the World Cup and has recently returned to the field with the Central Coast Mariners, was vaguely in the conversation, too.
Both Mary Fowler and Amy Sayer have taken turns ghosting into the role from their more natural positions in attacking midfield, as have wingers like Cortnee Vine and Holly McNamara (injured).
But none of them quite worked. None of them were able to offer the strength, the speed, the game awareness, the combination play, or the goal-scoring instincts of Kerr. Not even close.
So for the first international window of 2024, Gustavsson has opted for someone else entirely: 35-year-old striker Michelle Heyman.
On paper, Heyman's selection makes sense. Fresh off scoring her historic 100th goal in the A-League Women — the first player ever to do it in the history of the competition — the centre-forward currently leads the Golden Boot race with 10 goals in 14 games.
Her goal-return rate throughout her Canberra United career has been similar, averaging roughly a goal every two or three games. She's the only player outside of Sam Kerr to have won both the Golden Boot and the Julie Dolan Medal twice.
The Matildas need a goal-scorer, and Heyman knows how to score goals. Simple, right?
But what does it say about the state of Australian football's striker pool that Gustavsson has had to turn to a player who has been retired from international football for the past five years in order to fill this gap?
In the same way as the Socceroos called up 36-year-old former Uruguayan striker Bruno Fornaroli for their recent Asian Cup campaign, Heyman's selection speaks to a chronic lack of centre-forwards that have been developed within the early-to-mid-20s age bracket in Australia: players who should have already been prepared to step into the space currently occupied by the late-20s to early-30s "golden generation," who will likely retire within the next two World Cup cycles.
This is not to say that Heyman doesn't deserve the call-up, nor that she won't potentially be the best striker-in-waiting while Kerr makes her slow return to the team.
Indeed, to get to the point of even being considered for selection is a testament to her longevity, her consistency, and her professionalism to continue pushing her body in order to keep up with the increasing pace and expectations of the modern game.
As Gustavsson himself said when asked about Heyman on Tuesday: "The way Michelle has played, she deserves to be selected.
"For me, it's not about age in the Matildas. It's about the quality you have as a footballer, whether you're 17 or 35. It doesn't matter; if you have the quality, you deserve to be selected.
"Heyman has played herself into this team [with] the way she plays. She's in tremendous form, she's scoring for fun.
Loading..."And we also feel, playing these type of qualifiers, when we think we're going to play against a very well-organised Uzbekistan, it's going to be difficult to get in behind, we need an in-and-out number nine in the box that needs half a chance to score. And that's Michelle."
And he's right.
Heyman fits a particular profile of striker: a classic centre-forward who is strong on the ball, powerful in the air, makes clever runs off of defenders' shoulders, can play with her back to goal, combines well with wingers and midfielders, and can finish chances from all sorts of angles and speeds.
So against a team like Uzbekistan, who is expected to defend deep and attack Australia in transition, having a centre-forward who can offer those qualities is important.
But what about longer-term? Is Heyman the answer to Kerr not just for this window, but for the next several windows? If not, who will be? Or will it all ebb and flow depending on the type of game and type of opponent the Matildas face?
Will we see a traditional striker like Heyman deployed in one window, and two inside-wingers combining with two attacking midfielders the next? Is that a sustainable approach, or a way to provide consistent national team development to whoever does come after Kerr? Or is this simply a more sophisticated approach to the more sophisticated demands of the modern game?
But more broadly, where is the next crop of Australian strikers coming from? In the A-League Women, many clubs this season (and in the past) have opted for foreign strikers, with just two clubs in the current top six regularly using Australian centre-forwards this season, while the youth national teams are only just beginning to meet more regularly for camps and international tournaments, though youth friendlies remain rare.
Where, then, will they develop? Where will the next Kerr not just be found, but made?
Gustavsson, for his part, doesn't want to look too far into the future. Perhaps because he's not too sure of what he sees there himself, either.
"We talked a little bit about the experience in the World Cup [of] how we handle Sam's absence then, and we've talked about how to handle it now," he said.
"We're just focusing on making sure that we can maximise what we've got in front of us. I know for a fact that Sam wants it to be about the team and not about her right now; it's all about the team qualifying for the Olympics.
"Who is replacing that spot up in that nine-slash-false-nine role? We have looked at different options before, as you know, with Caitlin, with Mary, with EVE.
"We have some 10s coming in with form like [Chloe] Logarzo, we have a Heyman coming in, we have a [Yallop] performing, we have an Amy Sayer that we've looked at in that role.
"It's about multiple options; it's just looking at how can we maximise that short-term right now, because right now it's just about one window and the qualifiers.
"And then, hopefully, if we do our job in the qualifiers, we can look long-term at how we build our team for the Olympics."
The Matildas face Uzbekistan in the first Olympic qualifier on February 24 at 8pm AEDT.
Matildas squad vs Uzbekistan
Goalkeepers: Mackenzie Arnold, Teagan Micah, Jada Whyman
Defenders: Ellie Carpenter, Steph Catley, Charlotte Grant, Clare Hunt, Alanna Kennedy, Aivi Luik, Clare Polkinghorne, Kaitlyn Torpey
Midfielders: Kyra Cooney-Cross, Mary Fowler, Katrina Gorry, Chloe Logarzo, Amy Sayer, Emily Van Egmond, Clare Wheeler, Tameka Yallop
Forwards: Caitlin Foord, Michelle Heyman, Hayley Raso, Cortnee Vine