"I'm not your average girl. I'd rather talk sport," says Kerr. Credit:Frances Andrijich Billy, Samantha's three-year-old boxer, is here, too. Hearing her name, she comes and rests her smoky muzzle on Samantha's knee and looks up at her with an expression of melancholy so irresistibly abject that I'll later find myself googling the breed. "She won't leave my side," says Samantha. "She's missed me." For the past five years, the professional soccer player, now 24, has been contracted to three clubs: Sky Blue FC in the American National Women's Soccer League (NWSL); Perth Glory FC in the Australian W-League; and the Australian national team, the Matildas. Through the northern summer, Kerr is based in New Jersey, and then every October, like an exotic bird pining for warmer climes, she flies back to Perth to play for her home team. At any time of the year, she could be playing international matches in destinations as farflung as China, Germany, Cyprus or Brazil. It's not an easy schedule for someone who doesn't like flying. In recent months, though, Kerr's career has gone supernova. Suddenly everyone, from mums and daughters wearing gold jerseys in shopping malls, waiting patiently for an autograph, to international football governing body FIFA, which recently shortlisted her for the highest accolade the game can bestow – Best Women's Player 2017 – is sitting up and paying attention.

"I play the best and have the most fun and success when I'm just being me," says Kerr. MinkPink hoodie and Camilla and Marc pants, both from David Jones. Nike crop top and ball from Rebel Sport. Credit:Frances Andrijich On July 30, at the inaugural Tournament of Nations competition, Kerr scored a hat trick against Japan in the first half of the game that secured, with breathtaking elan, a 4-2 victory for the Matildas. The crowd inside the San Diego stadium, still reeling from the audacity of it all, could scarcely believe their eyes when a jubilant Kerr, after netting her third goal, executed a perfect backflip. A few days later, at the StubHub Center in Carson, California, the Matildas brought the tournament home, scoring a 6-1 win against Brazil, the universally acknowledged spiritual custodians of the beautiful game. Kerr netted the final, exultant goal of the match in the 81st minute of play, after a pair of braces by captain Lisa De Vanna and Caitlin Foord. Even Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten quit bickering long enough to fire off a pair of congratulatory tweets. Winning this tournament, a series of friendlies between Australia, the US, Japan and Brazil, put the Matildas at the grown-ups' table, but the ultimate test of mettle will be the World Cup in France in two years' time. In the meantime, the momentum keeps building. On September 16, at western Sydney's Penrith Stadium, in front of a record home crowd of 15,000, the Matildas beat Brazil for the second time 2-1, Kerr unleashing a blistering header that left the South American defence gawping. Three days later in Newcastle, in yet another home-soil masterclass on how to summarily dismiss a superpower, Kerr scored two goals and provided an assist for the third to bring about another defeat, this time 3-2, of the Brazilian side. The almost 17,000 fans at the match – a new record – roared their assent. The visitors were so rattled by their third consecutive loss to Australia that they refused to shake hands after the game. When defender Rafaelle walked past Kerr's outstretched hand and, seconds later, dismissed Alanna Kennedy's, Kerr lifted her shoulders and raised her palms in the universal gesture of bewilderment. But the Matildas' coach, Alen Stajcic, was about as chuffed as anyone can be: "She's just flying, isn't she?" he told reporters.

Sammy's got everything. She is tremendously fast. Her speed change is astronomical; I haven't seen anything like it, especially in a female footballer. Perth Glory coach Bobby Despotovski The Matildas have come a long way since 1999 when, badly in need of a profile, they made the decision to pose for a nude calendar. The following year, with a spot at the Sydney Olympics guaranteed, they lost their first game of the tournament, against Germany, 3-0. Brazil then delivered a 2-1 coup de grâce, swiftly terminating any ambition they had of making it past the first round. The ignominy was complete. Daniel is making short work of a bowl of unidentified leftovers from the fridge. "You know," he says with infinite gravity, "Sam'll tell you I taught her everything she knows about soccer, but I don't like to take the credit for it." Everyone in the room turns to look at him. It turns out Daniel, who's 10 years older than his sister, has a killer smile. The Kerr offspring are gene-pool bounty made manifest. Roger was born in Calcutta to an English father, a metallurgist and featherweight boxer for Bengal, and an Indian, basketball-playing mother; they moved to Perth when he was 10. His children – or, at least, his first- and last-born who are here today – have inherited his smooth, nut-brown skin, abundant dark hair and even, white teeth. Australian-born Roxanne also comes from a sporty family. Her father and uncles all played in the West Australian Football League (WAFL) – she is related to famous players Con Regan and Shaun McManus – while another uncle, J.J. Miller, won the 1966 Melbourne Cup on a horse called Galillee. "We grew up going to the footy," Kerr says.

An easy athleticism inhabits the sinewy Kerr frame. Roger is a former WAFL and South Australian National Football League player who went on to coach the South Fremantle Colts and Claremont (he now has a client-servicing role in an electrical accessories firm). Daniel, meanwhile, played 220 games with the West Coast Eagles, including the 2006 AFL grand final. And Samantha … well, she's no longer known only as Daniel Kerr's little sister. "Both her and Daniel, from year 1 onwards, they won every race going," says Roxanne. "And they did it without even trying." There are two other siblings: Levi, 31, who owns a car wash, and 28-year-old Madeline, a primary-school teacher. "Levi wasn't particularly into sport and Madeline wasn't good enough to play with," says Daniel. "But Sam could play cricket like an adult from year one. And we played soccer in the house. She was good enough to make it a challenge for me. "The most I've ever enjoyed sport in my life was watching her play in Sydney. I quite enjoyed it when Brazil wouldn't shake their hands; it meant that they'd got under their skin. It's good for the game." The Kerr kids, from left: Levi, Madeline and her fiance Pascal Kuhn, Samantha and Daniel (with daughter Lola). Credit:Courtesy of Sam Kerr

We're chatting in late October; in just three days' time, the Australian W-League will kick off with its first match of the season, a replay of last season's grand final between Perth Glory and Melbourne City. Last February, Kerr's side lost 2-0. This year, as everyone acknowledges, things feel a little different. The Glory's favourite daughter, who helped liquidise the US, Japan and Brazil in recent months, has come home from the US to wear the number 20 purple jersey again. "Last year, we were the underdogs," says Kerr, who'll also be wearing the captain's armband. "This time, there'll probably be a little bit of a target on my back." Later, on an unseasonably cool night at the Alan J. Routman Maccabi Pavilion in northern Perth's Yokine, Glory coach Bobby Despotovski takes his newly reassembled squad through their paces in preparation for Friday night's match. They practise playing out from the back, with goalkeeper Melissa Maizels kicking the ball out to the left flank to defender Natasha Rigby, who in turn passes it to midfielder Nicola Bolger, who despatches it forward to Kerr and fellow attacker Raquel Rodríguez. The ball then begins its return journey, up the other flank, back to Maizels. The aim of the exercise is to cultivate in every player a sense of confidence and poise over the ball. The black frizzy ponytail of Costa Rican Rodríguez bobs distinctively on the pitch; so, too, the long blonde plait of American Nikki Stanton. Sky Blue teammates of Kerr, they've also made the long journey to Western Australia from New Jersey. As the moon turns into a luminous fingernail paring high in the sky and the floodlights airbrush the pitch to a manicured, bowling-green perfection, the girls retreat to the changing room to catch up and set some targets for the coming season. "Sammy's got everything," Despotovski tells me. "She is tremendously fast. Her speed change is astronomical; I haven't seen anything like it, especially in a female footballer. I remember her as a 14-year-old: she was born with that speed."

Matildas' coach Alen Stajcic also remembers the first time he saw the 13-year-old Samantha Kerr play: "She got the ball in her own half and ran with it for about 70 metres before scoring a goal for Western Australia against Queensland." A pause. "It's abnormal that a person can run the ball that far at 13 years of age against 15- and 16-year-olds who are the best in their state. Her speed and mobility are the best in the world and her awareness of space and how to use it are extraordinary and very instinctual." Then there's that elusive "X" factor: Kerr's ability to create dangerous situations for herself that makes her almost impossible to mark. The Kerrs were an AFL family in an AFL town: it made sense that Samantha, like her dad and big brother, would also play football. But when it became apparent that she had talent, a code that allowed advancement for girls had to be found. "We knew she had something at a very young age," says Roger. "Her hand-eye co-ordination was excellent with any kind of ball, even just playing cricket in the house. And she was ambidextrous." "One hundred per cent I would have stayed with football if I could," says Kerr. "I was all AFL. I didn't really like soccer that much. It's actually a completely different skill. I think anyone can pick up an AFL ball and have a go: you throw the ball down and kick it. A soccer ball, though, it takes a lot more skill. Think about how hard it is to use your left hand when you're right-handed; it's so much harder to use your left foot." Kerr started playing soccer when she was 12. In 2009, at just 15, she made her debut with the Matildas, playing against Italy in Canberra (the side was hammered 5-1). Kerr attributes her lightning pathway to always having played with boys. "My advice to any young girls playing soccer is, stay with the boys as long as you can. A 12-year-old boy is always going to be faster, quicker and stronger. It's a totally different game and it requires more from you. I see young girls who train with us and I say to them, 'You guys think you're working hard, but you've gotta give 10 times more.' They've been playing with other girls the same age as them their whole lives."

Kerr played her first game for the Matildas at age 15. Credit:AAP Three other players also stood out from the rest in the youth national team at that time: Stephanie Catley (now with Melbourne City), Emily Van Egmond (Newcastle Jets) and Caitlin Foord (Sydney FC); all of them are fellow Matildas. "We were fast, aggressive and we made things happen," says Kerr. "To this day, we're that kind of player. Physically fearless." Kerr considers herself lucky to have played in a good soccer club, the Western Knights in Perth's Mosman Park, where the boys accepted her as one of their own. "I have a great bunch of girlfriends, but I'm not your average girl," she says. "I'd rather talk sport." On Samantha's 10th birthday, Roxanne made her invite one girl to her party: "She reckons it was the worst mistake she's ever made because she just felt so sorry for her. She sat in a corner and spoke to no one all afternoon while I ran off to kick a ball around with the boys." In 2013, the 19-year-old Kerr signed with the Western New York Flash for the inaugural season of the NWSL. A YouTube video shows her hanging out with Flash midfielder Carli Lloyd, 10 years Kerr's senior, who has since become one of the all-time greats of the game. In the clip, Kerr can barely stop giggling long enough to answer a series of light-hearted "getting to know you" questions: her favourite movie, she manages to get out between incapacitating bouts of laughter, is Law Abiding Citizen (Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler); her favourite song is Greyhound by Swedish House Mafia; her favourite athlete is David Beckham ("Because he's hot"); the things she misses most about Australia are "Tim Tams and my dog" This may not have been entirely accurate. While Kerr thrives on the experience and skill escalation that being inside the toughest women's football league in the world for six months a year gives her, she's often very homesick. She and Roxanne FaceTime two hours every day and Roxanne travels to the US whenever her full-time work as a sales representative for a snack food company allows.

Roxanne will never forget sitting with the locals in a New Jersey beer garden on August 20 last year watching Sky Blue FC, Kerr's team since a 2015 transfer, claw their way back into contention from a 3-0 half-time deficit against Seattle Reign. In the 71st minute of play, Kerr iced her second hat-trick of the season, dribbling the ball all the way from the 50-yard line, with four defenders unable to shut her down, to release a precision jab into the net. Seattle scored another goal with just five minutes to go, only for Sky Blue to equalise again. And still they weren't done. In the 94th minute, Kerr headed home a corner kick to win her fourth goal of the night. As Reign players looked on stunned, Kerr knee-ploughed into the grass and was soon obliterated from view as her teammates piled on top of her. She had become the first NSWL player to score four goals in one game. "It was crazy," says Nikki Stanton. "In games Sam does stuff that you don't even think is possible. I've never seen a forward defend as hard as she does and when you're on a team and you see that kind of defensive effort, it just pumps everyone else up. And she's always such fun. She keeps practices light-hearted and lifts everyone up." Still, Kerr admits to feeling pressure earlier this year. When you're known for putting balls inside nets, you can start to feel a little … well, paranoid when you don't. "Up until the Tournament of Nations, I always played really well for my club, but not great for the national team," she says. "I did okay, but I didn't score. And I'd started to get into this way of thinking that maybe my teammates thought I was, like, bad when I didn't." She started talking to a sport psychologist, Kate Wensley, whom Stajcic had recently brought into the Matildas' camp for moments, one suspects, just like these. "Kate's been unbelievable," she says. "She feels like a friend."

Wensley's advice to Kerr has been not to visualise scoring goals because it can be gutting when you don't, but instead to just go out and really enjoy playing soccer. Instead of "angsting" in the changing room before a game, Kerr takes a ball in with her and plays cricket or handball – anything that doesn't involve getting mentally hung up on the task ahead. "Just before we went out to play Japan [in the Tournament of Nations], Caitlin Foord asked me, 'Are you going to score today?' and I said, 'I'm going to score three.' I ended up playing my best game ever for the national team that day. Now, before every game, Kate and I have a little chat." Samantha Kerr is eyeing up a large toasted chicken parmigiana sandwich. We're in Sydney, the morning after she was named Sportswoman of the Year at the Women's Health magazine awards. She was striking on the red carpet in a slim-fit, fire-engine red Eileen Kirby evening gown, her hair sleek, the dazzling Kerr smile on the loose. Her plus-one was one of her best friends from home, Seonaid Rodgers, a medical physicist at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Fremantle. The pair have been close since they were 13-year-old schoolgirls at Somerville Baptist College in Murdoch. Kerr at the Women's Health Sportswoman of the Year Awards. Credit:Dave McKelvey Rodgers, like almost every observer of the women's game in the country, is blown away by Kerr's composure in the spotlight, her ability to ride the really big moments in her career with preternatural calm. "Honestly, I didn't realise how famous she is until I came to Sydney," she says. "I didn't realise how sought after she is and how the media love her and want to know her. They're all on her side. I'm really proud of her for the way she handles it all. "This transformation into a really successful athlete has been weird for us [her girlfriends] because she has been the same person throughout our friendship. She comes home every summer and when we see her again, absolutely nothing has changed. She just fits right back in with us girls and doesn't tell us about her success at soccer, all the awards she's won and interviews she's done."

The friends just "chill out" at the Kerr home, watching TV, eating snacks and talking about their families and what's going on in their lives. "Of course we have fun times – Samantha is an extremely energetic, athletic person – but downtime is a very big deal for her," says Rodgers. "Her family and her dog are very, very important. And she has always been that way." At the end of September, when it was announced that Kerr had failed to make the three-player final shortlist for the FIFA Best Women's Player 2017 gong, the soccer Twittersphere went into an indignant meltdown. Kerr just shrugs as she dabs a little mayo from the corner of her mouth: "That's awards. People are always going to be disappointed. Whatever. I'd rather win the World Cup." She continues: "When you play sport and your face is in the newspapers and you're on TV, it's easy for an athlete to think they're bigger than they are. I never want to be someone my friends and family …" She trails off. "Nick Kyrgios. I don't ever want to be that person and, for me, it's about being true to who I am. I started playing this game for the love of it and working with Kate has taught me that I play the best and have the most fun and success when I'm just being me." Kerr has seen, close-up, the high personal cost that comes when a player submits to the excesses of young celebrity. From 2002 onwards, Daniel's stellar career was marred by a string of bad-boy antics, including late-night brawling (it was alleged he'd broken then AFL teammate Ben Cousins' arm after pushing him down some stairs), charges of assault and endangering the lives, health and safety of two people, and a drug-deal allegation, culminating in a five-night stint at Perth's maximum-security Hakea Prison in May 2016. Amid the turmoil, his marriage to Natasha Pozo, the mother of his daughters, Lola and Ruby, ended. Recognising a nadir when he saw one, Daniel vowed that, when he got out of jail, he'd turn his life around. I ask Kerr if she has learnt from her brother's experience. "One hundred per cent," she says. "When times were good for the West Coast Eagles, they were like movie stars. They couldn't go out. He gave up too much of his personal life to be a professional athlete and it got to a stage where he just didn't care what people thought: he just wanted to do what he wanted. He'd be the first to admit he really stuffed up."

Brother Daniel Kerr (right) started playing for the West Coast Eagles at age 17. Credit:Sebastian Costanzo During the worst of it, Samantha didn't speak to Daniel for two years. "If he walked into a room, she walked out of it," Roxanne tells me in a quiet moment. "It was her way of saying, 'I don't like what you're doing. Stop it.' " Daniel has set up a foundation called Together We Can and, for the last two years, has been taking sport, music and dance to primary-school kids in remote communities in WA's Goldfields-Esperance region ("out Leonora and Cosmo Newbury way"). He has also launched a sports events company called Rad Promotions and has a new partner, Michelle, along with their baby, Luka. When I compliment him on his entrepreneurial zeal, he laughs: "I got myself into so much trouble, nobody else would employ me." On November 2015, Kerr was playing in the first half of a W-League match against Brisbane Roar at Suncorp Stadium when she suffered a devastating Lisfranc fracture – the rupture of a tendon that supports the bones – to her left foot. Kerr says she heard a pop and, afterwards, it felt as though her foot were in two pieces. She endured four surgeries, which included the insertion of a plate and four screws, and took a leave of absence from the sport. It was, she says, one of the toughest periods of her life: there were no guarantees she'd be able to play soccer again and the realisation was devastating. "I didn't understand how much football was a part of my life," she says. "I guess I took it for granted – and all the opportunities it's given me."

Eight months later, her foot suddenly came good: "One week I still couldn't run, I was in a pretty dark place mentally and Mum was getting ready to fly over to America to bring me home – and the next it was great. It was like someone touched me." She was fit enough to make the final 18-player Matildas squad for the Rio Olympics. For Nikki Stanton, Kerr's comeback revealed something fundamental about her teammate's character. "She was lower than low," Stanton says, "but stayed positive and came through that hard time better than anyone could have and is now stronger than ever. It's admirable." Alen Stajcic is a man who thinks in three- to four-year cycles. He agrees that 2017 has been a stunning year for the Matildas, but can now see other prizes beckoning tantalisingly in the middle distance: if the squad can continue its current momentum, he reasons, there's no reason why the Asian Cup in Jordan in April next year can't be theirs. After that, in 2019, the World Cup in France. "Our first win against the US [in the Tournament of Nations] was a ground-breaking moment for us," he says. "It's not just the fact that we won the game; it's that we were the better team. We played better than the best team in the world." The two-match International Series friendlies against China (one in Melbourne last Wednesday and the second on Sunday in Geelong) are expected to show just how well the Matildas are tracking on their long, slow climb to world domination. The result at AAMI Park on Wednesday night - a decisive 3-0 victory for the Matildas, with Kerr elegantly bookending a top-corner winner from Tameka Butt - just confirms their current unstoppability. The mood in the camp is euphoric. "The breakout year Sam has had has given everyone a renewed sense of confidence and belief," says Stajcic. "There's an infectious level of confidence when one player is performing at such a level." Kerr with her boxer, Billy. “That feeling of being home again, nothing beats it,” she says. Credit:FRANCES ANDRIJICH

A new pay deal helps. In early September, Football Federation Australia and Professional Footballers Australia announced that a "landmark" collective bargaining agreement had been reached, promising W-League players an average salary of $15,500 for the coming season, more than double what they received last year. Players at the top of the game, like Kerr, will be paid at least $130,000 from deals struck with their clubs at home and overseas and with the Matildas. While Kerr also enjoys sponsorships with Nike, Hyundai and Fox Sports, she's still a world away from the $655,000 paid to the highest-earning female player in international competition, the Brazilian striker Marta. "I'm a realist," she says. "You can't suddenly times your salary by 10; that doesn't happen anywhere. We've never asked to be paid the same as the men; we asked to be paid fairly. It's the biggest thing people miss." Mark Bosnich certainly missed it. In May last year, when word got out that the Matildas had lost a training session game against a young male Newcastle Jets team 7-0, the former Socceroos goalkeeper said in a Triple M interview that the team would do well to remember the drubbing next time they asked to be paid the same as their male counterparts. He was swiftly advised by a number of female players, past and present, to get his facts straight and pull his head in. Commentator Sarah Groube defused tensions by pointing out that the loss was hardly a big deal: playing against fast, strong teen boys was just an efficient way to test the side's limits. For Fox Sports commentator Amy Duggan, a former Matilda and a mother, these "raw, honest and hardworking" young women have become the heroes she never had growing up. "When you see someone like Sam Kerr doing the best she possibly can on and off the field – so fast and skilful and yet so humble – well, she's someone you'd want your daughter to be. Girls have to see it to be it and that's the thing I love most about her right now: her visibility." Australian female athletes don't get to enjoy the accolades being heaped on Kerr too often; cricketer – and former Matilda – Ellyse Perry is the media's other current darling. But there's a sense the tide is turning. When it comes to games that have traditionally been thought of as male – soccer, AFL, cricket, the two rugby codes – each benefits from the others' growing momentum.

Kerr understands the responsibility that comes with her new profile. "Ten months ago, I could do whatever I wanted, but now everyone's paying attention. I actually like it. I like that my little cousins are proud to tell people who I am and want me to come pick them up from school. I remember how I felt in primary school when my brother was playing AFL; no matter what, I thought it was pretty special." Now there's an AFL Women's league, could she be tempted away from soccer back to her first love? Not a chance. "There's been a lot of talk about my going back to AFL, but why would I go back to growing something new, starting at the bottom again, when we've spent so many years growing the Matildas brand?" she says. "I feel like I owe this game so much. It's given me my life."