ZOE ASKEW
SOCCER
By ZOE ASKEW MATILDAS goalkeeper Teagan Micah is the latest Australian to join the English Women’s Super League after penning a contract with Liverpool Football Club. The 25-year-old former Moe United Soccer Club player formerly announced her switch to Liverpool after three seasons with FC Rosengard in Sweden, just days before the Matildas’ opening 2023 Women’s World Cup match against the Republic of Ireland. Micah is the second-ever Australian female footballer to sign for Liverpool, and joins the likes of Matilda stars Sam Kerr, Steph Catley, Courtney Nevin, Mary Fowler, Caitlin Foord, Alanna Kennedy, Clare Wheeler, Kyah Simon, Emily Gielnik, Lydia Williams and Mackenzie Arnold in the English Women’s Super League. Micah’s continuingly successful football career all began at Moe United, where she played juniors until moving to Brisbane to help facilitate her development. Speaking to the Express in 2021, her mother Yvonne recalled her daughters upbringing. “Both my husband and I were born down in the Latrobe Valley region, so we have long had roots here, with the three girls being born at the old Moe Hospital – we lived on Albert Street, and the girls went to Albert Street Primary School,” she said. “Teagan always wanted to go and do AusKick every year and had some really good little male friends at school, and they used to rough and tumble with her and play all types of sport; it wasn’t until they decided they wanted to play soccer that Teagan changed tune from Aussie Rules and went down to Moe United. “She then went on to do two years at Moe United with my second daughter Kaitlin before we moved to Queensland, and she just fell in love with the game, and her passion only grew as she continued to climb the ranks moving into her teenage years.” Micah forged a successful college career with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA Bruins) after short stints with Brisbane at Western Sydney as a teenager. She set an American college record of 86 appearances over four years, keeping 36 clean sheets and earning the second-all-time record for saves made and third-all-time record for clean sheets. Following a triumphant college career, Micah returned to Australia for the 2019/20 season, serving as a backup keeper to fellow Matildas keeper Casey Dumont at Melbourne Victory. Micah secured a position in the Norwegian Toppserien (the top level of women’s association football in Norway), signing for Arna-Bjørnar ahead of the 2020 season. She returned in late 2020, signing with Melbourne City for the 2020/21 season, where she collected the W-League Goalkeeper of the Year award and the club’s Player of the Year prize. Micah returned to Norway for a brief stint at Idrettslaget Sandviken, before signing a two-year contract with Rosengard in August 2021, securing back-to-back Damallsvenskan titles in 2021 and 2022 while also winning the 2021/22 Svenska Cupen. Micah’s move to Scandinavia proved to be the right choice, as the young goalkeeper piqued the eye of newly recruited Matildas head coach Tony Gustavsson, who gave the keeper her debut ahead of the 2021 Olympic Games. Having been first called up to the senior national team in 2017, Micah had spent four years preparing for her national debut, with the debutant going on to record a clean sheet in a warm-up fixture against Sweden ahead of the Olympics. Micah started in five of the Matildas’ six games in Tokyo, bursting into the spotlight following a player-of-the-match performance in goal against Great Britain. Following impressive performances against some of the world’s most formidable opponents, the most recent goalkeeping inclusion to Gustavsson’s national team squad quickly ascended the pecking order, staking her claim for selection to the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. The goalkeeper now joins Matt Beard’s LFC Women from FC Rosengard, where she has played since 2021 and says she is excited for the next chapter of her career. “I’m excited to be here; it’s Liverpool Football Club, so it’s massive, and I’m just really excited for this next chapter in my career,” Micah said. “Having good chats with Matt [Beard] and Pottsy [Joe Potts], the keeper coach, I got a really good vibe from them, and it’s such a good club with a lot of history to it. “For me, it was also about getting into the WSL – I know it’s turning into the best league in the world. To be able to compete against the best players in the world is really important for myself, for my career. “I can just see this club is going places, it’s investing, so there are a lot of good factors coming together.” The 25-year-old hopes her presence with LFC Women will attract even more Australian fans to the club, and is eager to get started following the Women’s World Cup. “Liverpool is a massive club around the world, so hopefully, with another Aussie at the club, they can get around it even more,” Micah said. “I hope I can help take us to the next level and hopefully cement us as a Champions League team in the years to come. “I’m just proper excited, really stoked to be here and can’t wait to get to work after the World Cup.” Beard is delighted with his latest acquisition, and feels Micah will be an asset to his goalkeeping group. “We feel we’re getting Teagan at a very good time – at the peak of her career – and we’re looking forward to working with her,” he said. “The fact that she’s won titles, played for big clubs, played in Champions League games, she’s experienced different things even at a young age for a goalkeeper – that experience will be invaluable, and hopefully, we’ll be able to draw on that. “Preseason is a clean slate; last season has gone now, so you rip that up and start again. We want to have two or three players for each position. It’s important we have that competition. “She’s completely different to the goalkeepers we’ve got, and she’s going to be a great addition to the squad.”