Cortnee Vine needs a new car. Her old one, a modest Kia Picante that made an unlikely star turn in Disney’s docu-series about the Matildas after it broke down on camera, was written off in April. Another vehicle had careered into it while Vine was away on international duty in England, and while she waits for a replacement, the down-to-earth winger is borrowing a somewhat more lavish set of wheels.
“I’ve actually got a supercar at the moment, which is pretty scary,” Vine says. “It’s another impostor syndrome moment.”
It is not the first time Vine has felt like an imposter over the past few years, amid a meteoric rise to prominence which is expected to culminate with a place in Tony Gustavsson’s World Cup squad for the eagerly anticipated tournament on home soil next month. But the 25-year-old from country Victoria is no fraud.
She may not see it herself, but there is ample evidence to warrant her inclusion on Australia’s final 23-woman list, to be revealed on 3 July. After a breakout season with Sydney FC in 2021-22, she has barely looked back during what has been a madcap 18 months.
“The last year and a half has been a whirlwind for me. A lot has happened,” she says, without a hint of understatement. Let’s start with her domestic achievements: Vine is coming off a stellar season during which she performed her own star turn, leading Sydney FC to a third straight A-League Women premiership and a first championship since 2019. Her direct, fearless and forward-thinking style of play has opposition defences quaking in their boots and she has been the club’s top scorer and the members’ player of the year for the past two seasons.
Recognition for her rapid progress at domestic level came with a first Matildas cap at the 2022 Asian Cup and she has since made a further 15 international appearances, scoring three times and starting in the last three fixtures against Czechia, Spain and Jamaica at the Cup of Nations. It is fair to say that one of those goals, an absolute thunderbastard against seventh-ranked Spain in Parramatta, was worthy of any pitch in the world.
Off the field, almost inadvertently, her upward trajectory has kept her just as busy. As one of the few members of the national team actually based in Australia, she has become one of the Matildas’ public faces on official business, making her recognisable to the masses. Yet, for all the trophies, awards, accolades and fame, Vine harbours a niggling feeling that, in some way, she is not worthy.
“I still feel a bit like [I have] impostor syndrome,” she says. “You know, do I belong here? I don’t actually know. I sometimes forget that I actually play for the Matildas, even for Sydney FC. When I’m walking around, some people want my photo and I get a bit shocked and a bit awkward.”
Vine says she will not to allow her new status to go to her head and she is determined to keep her feet on the ground – “I don’t think that’s going to change” – even with a huge leap in her career potentially just around the corner. With most of her international teammates plying their trade in top European leagues and the US, she knows a move overseas is the next logical step in her career. The World Cup provides a chance to showcase her talent to a wider audience.
“Any opportunity that comes up, it’s in very big consideration,” she says. “At the moment, I’m focusing on the World Cup and trying to make that team. But whatever comes up, I’m willing to think about. I’m definitely not shutting out going overseas and that’s something I do want to do in my career. It just depends on the timing for me.”
Seemingly, the timing could not be better. Her contract with Sydney FC is up and she is at the very top of her game, something she is at pains to credit her coach Ante Juric and his staff with. “I’m at my peak right now,” she says. “Hopefully still going up. But at the moment I’m at a really high level.
“You can look at it like putting yourself in the shop window – it’s a World Cup, you’ve got so many people watching. If I get an opportunity to play, because that’s not guaranteed either, and people get to see my name and hopefully I play well … yeah, you just don’t know what comes up.”
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Vine was born in Shepparton, Victoria, but her mum and dad upped sticks and moved to Queensland and it was there, at the family home in the suburbs to the north of Brisbane, where she mapped out her future in football – quite literally. On the back of the door to her bedroom the young Vine wrote down a series of career goals. One by one she has ticked them off and now just a few remain. The next one? To be selected in a World Cup squad.
“I’ve had it on my goals list since I was 12 and I knew there was a Women’s World Cup,” she says. “It’s been on there and it’s still on there and to think it could potentially be ticked off is crazy – literally a lifelong dream. I don’t know what I’ll do if I get that call. Obviously I’ll call my mum and my dad, tell my partner. But I don’t know, I’ll be flipping out.”
Should the call arrive, Vine will again cast her mind back to her old bedroom door and the next items on her list – making a World Cup appearance and nailing down a berth in the starting XI – but neither of these are straightforward tasks.
Led by Sam Kerr, and boasting other world class players such as Steph Catley, Caitlin Foord and Ellie Carpenter, this Matildas squad is well established and has been relatively settled for years. Their own rise has led to the inevitable “golden generation” moniker and gatecrashing the party is not easy.
“I go in there and you’re around these great players,” Vine says. “Everyone who comes into that team wants to start. It’s very competitive. They encourage the competitiveness to be honest, they want you to come in and compete. It makes them better, it makes me better.
“Every time I go into camp with them, they’re just fantastic. They demand quality in training, they really try to lift the standard at trainings. It’s crazy to think how much they’ve done with their careers, and they’re over there playing in the WSL and killing it, not just playing, killing it over there.”
As Vine pushes to become a regular in the team and improves her game by learning from the best, she remains pragmatic about her progress. “If Tony gives me the opportunity, he does,” she says. “If not, I’m happy to be a part of it, to be part of the process and to be able to train with quality players, to travel overseas and be part of the national team.”
Vine will learn her immediate fate from Gustavsson in a few weeks. Then, all being well, she will head straight into an intensive pre-tournament camp, when “the real grind starts” and focus narrows on the opening game against Ireland in Sydney on 20 July. And with that may come a chance to silence the doubts in her head and prove, if only to herself, that she is worthy of this stage.
