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It might just have been the craziest 12 months of Mat Ryan’s life and it could take another twist with the Socceroos captain and goalkeeper urging his teammates to believe they can shock everyone and deliver Australia’s best ever World Cup finish.
In the last year, Ryan moved countries, lost his place in the Socceroos starting side while captain, regained it, missed the birth of his first child after his son came early and became an internet sensation thanks to a series of otherworldly saves against Barcelona at the Camp Nou and Real Madrid at the Bernabeu while playing for his new club Levante.
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“I guess that’s life as I’ve come to know it,” Ryan said.
“It’s unpredictable and there’s uncertainty around it and that doesn’t mean uncertainty has to be a negative thing, it can also be a positive.”
It’s fitting, in a way, for a journey that started in slightly unconventional fashion when he rocked up to his first representative trial with iconic Sydney club Marconi wearing black woollen gloves instead of goalkeeper gloves.
“I was playing out on the field as a striker and midfielder until I was 10 years old,” he said.
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When his best friend at the time swapped grassroots football for Marconi, a chain of events started that put Ryan on the path to where he is today; about to compete at a fourth World Cup.
That friend, his brothers and their father would go down to the local park to do extra training and Ryan joined in.
“I used to go down and jump in goal whilst he was training his boys and halfway through that season he come and turned to me and said that their goalkeeper for the Marconi team was leaving to go and move interstate with his family and that they were looking for a goalkeeper,” Ryan said.
“He thought I was a natural, and he goes, ‘Would you like to go trial?’
“I said, ‘Why not? I’ll go give it a crack.’”
Ryan rocked up to that first trial opportunity full of natural talent, but with one key part of his kit missing.
“The coach actually turned to me, and I had just like black woollen gloves on my hands because it was the middle of winter.
“I remember him asking me, ‘Where’s your goalkeeper gloves?’
“I naively and sincerely just answered ‘My mum says she’ll buy me a pair if I make the team.’
“Sure enough, after that training session I made the team and Mum went and bought me a pair of gloves and I started all the goalkeeper training.”
So, from a pair of wooly gloves, one of the great Australian sporting careers was born.
Ryan has 104 national team appearances on his resume, sitting only behind Mark Schwarzer and Tim Cahill on the all-time list.
He’s also one of only two Socceroos, alongside Mathew Leckie, to have featured in 10 World Cup games.
His club career has taken him all over Europe. Levante is Ryan’s 11th European club. After his departure from the Central Coast Mariners in 2013, he has called teams in Belgium, Spain, England, Denmark, the Netherlands, Italy and France home.
“For a long time, I’ve dedicated my life and lived my life revolving around football.
“The ultimate prize is making World Cup squads and having the opportunity to represent our country there.
“There’s nothing quite like it.
“We’re planning to make it our best World Cup ever, in our nation’s history, so to have that just in front of us is really exciting.”
Ryan comes into the World Cup off the back of one of the best seasons of his career, but even that got off to a slightly complicated start.
Levante came in for the Aussie shot stopper, who was off contract at the time, in late August; deep into the transfer window. The lack of clarity around where they’d be living and where Ryan would be playing made planning around the birth of his first child with partner Chloe difficult.
“I was thinking that we were going to find somewhere earlier than that,” he said.
As the club search dragged on, they decided Chloe should head back to Perth to ensure a support system was in place. When the Levante deal was done, Ryan made plans to jet home in between games to be there for the big moment. All was set.
That was until Levante’s third game of the La Liga season against Girona in September.
They won 4-0 after a loss and a draw to open the campaign.
Ryan checked his phone after full-time and there was a message from Chloe waiting.
“I got a message thinking it was going to be a congratulatory message because we had won our first game of La Liga,” he says.
“Instead, it was her telling me that she thinks her water had broken.”
At that moment, Ryan knew he was going to miss the birth. His son, Preston, was born a week early.
Four days after that text message, a date with Real Madrid loomed. The relentless nature of European football saw a clash with Getafe come three days after as well. Soon after full-time in that fixture, Ryan made the briefest of trips back to Australia.
“I was there for about 36 hours just to meet Preston and get to know my son a little bit before flying back out and they didn’t move across to Valencia until the end of November.
“It was difficult and when I say difficult, of course it was difficult for myself, but it doesn’t even come close to the difficulty my wife was dealing with in that scenario without having her partner there with her.”
It was against that backdrop that Ryan went on to produce some of the best form of his career.
Levante escaped relegation from La Liga by the barest of margins and the Aussie number one was instrumental.
In 36 games, Ryan kept nine clean sheets and made 125 saves.
Among those 125 saves were several against Barcelona at the Camp Nou and Real Madrid at the Bernabeu that were nothing short of world class.
The kid with the woollen gloves on trial at Marconi would barely believe the wild journey the game would take him on.
“For many years after that I guess my thought process was like ‘I’ve got no idea if I’ll be able to be good enough to become a professional, if I’ll be able to get to Europe, if I’ll be able to represent the national team,’” he says.
“That kid back then probably would’ve envisaged himself doing those things in his dreams and trying to work towards getting to that point without knowing whether it would come true or not.”
One thing that is for certain is that fatherhood has changed how he approaches football.
“Becoming a father has helped take the edge off it a little bit and made me realise that there’s more important things than a game of football, even though I still place massive importance on the meaning of a match.
“Probably throughout my career I could’ve done with a little bit more distraction, perhaps, in just recognising that it’s also good to switch off and find a bit of life balance.”
Ryan has just turned 34. That’s not the end of the road for the modern athlete anymore and goalkeepers tend to last longer than most in the professional game. While he knows football is uncertain, Ryan doesn’t plan to hang up the gloves any time soon.
“I’m going to keep going for as long as I can,” he said.
“It’s a long time retired as a footballer, but at the same time, when I’ve still got the same, or even more hunger and passion to keep playing and competing at the highest level, I feel good and it still provides me with a lot of purpose in my life.”
Ryan will become the most capped Socceroo ever if Australia makes the quarterfinals and he plays every game. It’s a huge turnaround for someone who was benched by coach Tony Popovic for the first three games of his time at the helm of the national side. Now, Ryan hopes to lead his country to their best ever World Cup result. A spot in the last eight would tick that box. Popovic has instilled a ‘why not us’ attitude in this playing group and there’s no limit to the level of ambition.
“In order to achieve incredible things, the first step is to believe that you can do it,” said Ryan.
“If you don’t believe then you are failing at the first hurdle.
“If we’re on our game and delivering our best performance, I believe that we can beat anyone.”
That mission starts against Turkiye in Vancouver.
