Hayley Raso has revealed she knew it was going to be a special night hours before she helped the Matildas to a momentous 4-0 win over Canada on Monday.
Raso was the goalscoring hero for the Matildas on a night where a defeat — even a draw — would have seen the host nation crash out of the tournament in the group stage.
Instead it turned into a famous night for Australian football with Raso leading the way with two goals.
Knowing a loss would have ended their home World Cup dream, Raso and her teammates had to ride an emotional rollercoaster after her first goal was ruled off-side before being overturned by the video official a minute later.
Raso now says she knew it was always going to work out for her and her team because of a special tattoo omen that was sitting above AAMI Park on Monday night.
Raso and her mum Renaye Sweeting have matching full moon tattoos on their arms and it was indeed a full moon that could be seen above the Melbourne stadium when Raso walked onto the field.
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“On the way to the game, on the bus, I text her (mum) and said it’s a full moon,” Raso said.
“She said, ‘It’s a sign’.’’
It was.
“The full moon is our thing. Every time there’s a full moon we send it to each other,” Sweeting said, according to Channel 7.
“I just kept looking up to the moon just saying, please come through for her… and it did.
“I can finally breathe, I don’t think I’ve breathed properly for three days.”
Family has always been at the centre of Raso’s world.
Raso also wears her signature hair ribbon to honour her grandma.
It is her family that helped Raso recover from the freak horror of the incident which saw her break three vertebrae in her back in 2018.
Raso made a miraculous recovery to feature in Australia’s 2019 World Cup campaign just 12 months after an on-field collision while playing for Portland Thorns left her future in doubt.
Raso, who recently signed for global powerhouse Real Madrid, said scoring at a World Cup and joining the Spanish side were once beyond her wildest dreams, but she still had “work to do here” to help the Matildas go deep into the tournament.
With superstar captain Sam Kerr still benched by her calf injury, Raso stepped up to power the Matildas to a round of 16 clash against Denmark in Sydney on Monday.
Raso was the early beneficiary of an important tactical move to start Caitlin Foord on the left wing, with the star forward combining brilliantly with Arsenal teammate Steph Catley and drawing the focus away from Raso’s flank.
A dangerous low cross from Catley after she overlapped Foord found Raso in space for the opener.
Matildas coach Tony Gustavsson said the change had a “massive effect”.
“We felt we wanted a little bit more combination play on the left side. Caitlin and Steph have a unique relationship and understanding when they play together,” he said.
“We felt we wanted to invest in the left-side today but also because Mary (Fowler) and EVE (Cortnee Vine’s replacement Emily van Egmond) have been really good as ‘false-nines’.
“It had a massive effect tactically – we got the best out of Steph and Caitlin tonight but also two players in form in (Fowler) and (van Egmond).”
— with NCA NewsWire