‘Do I belong here?’: The young Matilda struggling with imposter syndrome
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Sometimes, Cortnee Vine can’t believe she’s playing for the Matildas.
“I’ve always watched the Matildas ever since they started doing really well and to think I’m there now, it’s just a bit crazy. I don’t believe it sometimes,” she said. But it’s not a pinch-me moment.
“A bit of imposter syndrome I reckon is there. I’m kind of like, ‘do I belong here?’”
Cortnee VineCredit: Getty
Vine, a winger for Sydney FC who made her debut for the Matildas at the 2022 Asian Cup, has struggled with internal pressure to perform and her rapid rise to the national team.
“Coming back to the league [after the Asian Cup campaign], I felt this pressure that was, I think it’s more internal than external to an extent that ‘I made my debut, I’ve capped now for Matildas, I need to be like this big player and I need to be killing the league and scoring’,” said Vine.
“The pressure came and I think I definitely hid initially when I came back from the Asian Cup, especially the first I’d say two weeks coming back, I was very in my head.”
Now Vine is preparing to play in a World Cup on home soil.
“I’m overwhelmed. I’m nervous. I’m excited. … It feels a bit not real either, that I could be at a World Cup.
“That’s still something I’m trying to process and I think for that again last year and a half, I have been trying to process the fact that I’m playing for my national team … I just find it all so crazy. I hope that never goes away.”
Vine has developed coping mechanisms to deal with the pressure and nerves. One of those is a tattoo on her right middle finger, a Viking symbol that means “create your reality”. It mimics a quote she has up in her room in Brisbane.
She steps back from the noise, and strips it all back to why she plays soccer.
“At the end of the day, you are in control of what you do,” she said.
“I’m in control of my life, like if I am feeling so stressed about this, why am I still doing it?
“So, [I’d] strip it all back and I play because I love it.”
Vine said she hoped the World Cup – the first major tournament she will be a part of, outside the Asian Cup – will boost the popularity of women’s soccer in Australia and interest in the A-Leagues.
“The impact that the Euros have had, and the amount of people that go to their games [in Europe], I [want] that for the A-League. If we can encourage young girls to get into football by how we play at this World Cup. That’s what I want out of it,” said Vine.
Sydney FC’s Cortnee Vine and Western United’s Angela Beard contest the ball in the semi-final earlier this month.Credit: Getty
“Obviously, and to win,” she quickly quipped.
“But you know, the impact I want is for young ones to want to go to the games or families, not even young ones, just adults to get around female football … Or they have young ones that go ‘I want to play in the A-League’ or they see if I’m there they go, ‘Cortnee plays in the A-League here like that’s so cool. Maybe I could do that’.”
Vine said her generation had watched her now-Matildas teammates such as Sam Kerr, Steph Catley and Caitlin Foord create a pathway for Australian women footballers to play professionally overseas, which had been inspirational.
But though offers have come from international clubs, her focus right now was on having an impact on the domestic league and the World Cup.
“It’s not to say that I don’t want to go overseas eventually, or that I won’t, but, at the moment, my focus is just on World Cup,” she said.
“[My goal] was always to represent Australia.
“But how cool would it be if we could create a different pathway that you could do a professional career, a full-time professional career in Australia? So, that’s something that I think would be really ideal in the future.”
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