She didn’t flinch — she just laughed it off.
Last Tuesday, Kennedy proved once again that pain is a state of mind. In the 32nd minute of a 2-0 friendly win over South Korea, she was involved in a crunching collision with teammate Tameka Yallop. The players clashed heads and lay on the floor before receiving treatment and playing on. Kennedy walked away with a massive shiner. Just another day at the office.
“As long as I was cleared for concussion, I was going to play,” she tells over a video call from Houston. She’s back from international duty, perhaps still a bit jetlagged, but suited up for her new squad, Angel City FC, against the Houston Dash, with a shiner to match. “It was always going to bruise and once the pain happens then you just move on, keep playing. I watched so many women do the same thing.”
Kennedy posted pictures from the game and a video of the aftermath on Instagram, and the comments quickly lit up with praise for her grit.
“Toughest player in Women’s football,” commented one follower. “She is a star, a real shiner on and off the field ;)” chimed in another. “It is the same color as Manchester’s third kit,” said one, presumably referencing Manchester City’s maroon strip.
The praise reflects the resilience she has shown throughout her career, a trait she developed as a young girl in Rosemeadow, a suburb of Sydney, where she played soccer with boys.
“Maybe it all stems from those early years — when I was a kid, I was the only girl on the team,” she says. “I remember always feeling slightly out of place, like they didn’t want me there, and they’d hack my ankles. So I guess I learned to be resilient pretty early on.”
Others recognized her talent and cherished it. At Westfields Sports High School, a selective school renowned for its athletic programs, Kennedy started to turn heads. She earned a spot on the Australian Under-14 national team and by 17 she was a Young Matilda. “I consider myself pretty lucky,” she says. “Obviously there is a lot of hard work but for me I had a very upward trajectory from a young age.”
Kennedy’s professional career has not been short on passport stamps or silverware. She kicked off her professional journey with Sydney FC in 2010 as a teenager in Australia’s W-League. Over the next six seasons, she moved across Australia, playing for a handful of teams, before heading to the U.S. to join the now-defunct Western New York Flash.
For the then 21-year old, moving to Buffalo in the dead of the winter was a bit of a shock. “I did not expect it to be as cold as it was when I first got there!” she remembers. “It was isolating.”
She missed the good coffee and famous Aussie breakfasts of her beachfront hometown. She also recalls how different the standards were back then, with facilities and resources far more limited. But the hardships and the leap paid off: Kennedy helped the club win the 2016 NWSL Championship in what turned out to be the franchise’s final season in New York.
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