How retired Australian striker earned Olympic comeback

Michelle Heyman's return is being called one of Australian sport's greatest comebacks

Five years ago, Australian striker Michelle Heyman retired from international football with a little more than a whimper.

But on Thursday, the 36-year-old will walk onto the field with the Matildas as they open their Olympic campaign, a feat being called one of the greatest comebacks in Australian sport.

After a record-breaking performance in the domestic football league this season, where she became the first A-League Women (ALW) player to ever surpass 100 goals, Heyman caught the eye of a Matildas coach desperate to fill the hole left by an injured Sam Kerr.

But not only is Heyman back in the squad, she is being seen as Australia’s best shot at finding the net in France.

"There’s always some haters thinking I'm too old to be back," she told the BBC before the tournament.

"But it's kind of fun to prove points to people... age is just a number."

Burnt out, injured, then fired

Michelle Heyman celebrates a goal with her teammates in 2011

Much like her return to the team in 2024, it was a stellar performance in the A-League – Australia’s domestic football offering – which catapulted a 21-year-old Heyman into the national team back in 2010.

Heyman would go on to play 61 games and score 20 goals for the Matildas, including appearances at the 2015 World Cup and the 2016 Rio Olympics, but her early international career was marred by constant struggle.

The Matildas of that era were paid miserably and worked under constant fear and stress, a team culture allegedly so toxic it resulted in the sacking of coach Alen Stajcic in early 2019.

But if there was little support from officials, there was even less from the public. Many of the Matildas games weren’t even open to spectators – the cost would outweigh ticket sales.

And then there were Heyman’s battles with both her physical and mental health: in interviews she spoke about anxiety and regular panic attacks, then back-to-back ankle and knee injuries which only made them worse.

Heyman has been candid about her struggles in the team

By May 2019, Heyman was burnt out, injured and stressed.

Her starting position on the team was long gone and she hadn’t played even a minute in six months.

"I really wanted to fight [on]… but my body isn't going to allow me to do that. My mind isn't going to allow me to do that," Heyman told Fox Sports when announcing her retirement from international football.

She’d achieved everything she set out to, except an Olympic gold medal, she said.

Years later she would admit she was trying to save face, telling Australian media she was actually dropped from the team.

"I had to just pretend that I wanted to retire but it was mainly because I got fired," she told Code Sports.

Heyman was so shattered she also exited the A-League and it seemed like the final pages of her storied career had been written.

'One of Australian sport’s greatest comeback stories'

But just 18 months later, a recharged Heyman returned to the A-League in a blaze of glory, netting a hat-trick in her first match back for Canberra United.

"I missed being part of something bigger than myself," she said at the time.

Since then, she has overtaken Kerr as the leading ALW goal scorer and become the first to earn a third Golden Boot award. These achievements, combined with her two Julie Dolan medals - the competition’s highest honour - arguably make her the league’s most decorated player.

So when Olympic selection came around, Heyman was ready and waiting, at the top of her game.

"She's in tremendous form, she's scoring for fun," head coach Tony Gustavsson said in February when recalling her to the squad.

The announcement quickly made waves around the country. "Just quietly, this might be one of Australian sport’s greatest comeback stories in recent memory," wrote Sydney Morning Herald football journalist Vince Rugari.

"Was it something that I thought would ever happen again? Probably not," Heyman says with a smile.

"I still remember the day - just like, tears. And I don't cry!”

Adding to the emotion is the fact the country she’s playing for barely resembles the one she competed for just five years ago.

The Matildas are the hottest sporting team in Australia, more well liked and well known than even the Australian men’s cricket team, experts say.

Players are now household names, every match on home soil since the start of the World Cup has sold out and they hold the record for the most watched television event in Australian history.

It’s hard to reconcile that with Heyman’s debut on "a back field in Queensland somewhere".

"I reckon there was 12 people at the game, if we were lucky," she says.

"And then now you look at it and our last game, 77,000 people [have] come, cheering you on. That's the feeling that I wanted for so many years, and it's something that I never thought was ever going to happen in Australia."

That awe and a bittersweet joy has rippled through the previous ranks of Matildas too, she says.

"I bring that emotion from every other ex-player, and I want to do it for them. I want to show them 'look what we all created'."

Does that – and the spectre of Kerr, the nation’s biggest sporting idol – add to the pressure to perform in France?

Heyman answers with a confident no.

She and Kerr are "very different" forwards but can both deliver, she says. In her few months back in the team, she has already scored six goals, twice as many as any of her teammates over the same period.

"I don't think anyone remembers the other, numerous amounts of goals I've scored for Australia, because they were done back in the day when no one cared about them,” she says with a chuckle.

"[But] I'm good at my job, and I'll continue to work hard and to win games."

Hard work will certainly be required. The Matildas have drawn a difficult group – going up against the powerhouse USA team, Rio 2016 gold medallists Germany, and Zambia for the two guaranteed spots in the next round.

The team has also suffered a slew of injuries. Apart from Kerr, co-captain Steph Catley and key winger Caitlin Foord have both been under a cloud the past month. And midfielder Katrina Gorry and defender Clare Hunt have only just returned from injury.

And though their World Cup campaign - most of which Kerr spent on the bench – would argue otherwise, pundits say the team often struggles to perform without her.

So what does Heyman say to the people who have already written the Matildas off?

"They can be quiet," she says cheekily.

"The more people we have supporting us the better we're going to do.

"And we're doing it for you - we're playing to win for our country."