FIFA Women's World Cup Matildas star Steph Catley displaying 'clutch gene' - ESPN

As the world became enraptured with the 'will she play or won't she play' saga surrounding Sam Kerr's troublesome calf, Steph Catley went about her business for Australia. Without much fanfare, and with even less fuss, the 29-year-old defender stepped up to don the armband and lead the Matildas into the knockout stages of the FIFA Women's World Cup. When the side needed her, she was there.

Catley's 52nd-minute penalty rescued things against Republic of Ireland in Australia's opening game of the tournament, as the prospect of commencing a home World Cup with a damp squib of a result against pugnacious opponents began to threaten. Rifled into the net, it was an effectively unstoppable effort, which became more contextually impressive as the tournament featured a wave of missed and fluffed penalties in the days that followed.

Then, after the disappointment of a 3-2 defeat by Nigeria that put the campaign on a knife edge, Catley was at the forefront of the rescue mission against Canada, helping to bring a capacity crowd to its feet as an increasingly rampant green-and-gold outfit stormed into the Round of 16.

Maybe it's the clutch gene, that special quality that imbues an athlete with the ability to rise to the occasion when others would not; it's something impossible to quantify or identify that correlates only with the output produced when the air is thickest.

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«Steph and Sam have worked as a pair when captaining this team, a captain and a vice-captain,» Matildas coach Tony Gustavsson said. «And they complement each other really well because they're different, with unique skill sets both as players and people.

»They bring up the best of each other as captains of this