There are whirlwinds and there is Kaitlyn Torpey’s 2024. When the year kicked off, she was still playing in her native Australia, still waiting for the right offer to take her career overseas and still pushing for that first Matildas call-up. In the space of just nine days in February, that all changed. Now, she can call herself a team-mate of stars like Alex Morgan, Caitlin Foord, Jaedyn Shaw and, when she returns from injury, Sam Kerr.
“It still doesn't really feel real,” Torpey tells GOAL from San Diego, having signed for the Wave, the 2023 NWSL Shield winners, earlier this year. “It still hasn't really hit me where I am. It's been great. I don't know when it will actually feel like, 'Okay, this is real life and this is happening'. It's been a whirlwind and I'm just living my dream and that's all I can ask for.”
Things are set to get better yet, too. Having boxed off her first title with the Wave in March with the Challenge Cup, despite only having five caps to her name, Torpey has secured a spot on the plane to France for when Australia flies out for the Olympic women’s football tournament this summer. It’s just another sprinkle of surrealism on top of six sensational months.