Mackenzie Arnold on the one piece of negative feedback she's carried her whole career.

The following is an extract from the book Macca: My Story So Far by Mackenzie Arnold, out on Oct 8.

Boy, was I in for a learning curve. Bre was the starting keeper at the time and she played our opening 1–0 win over the Netherlands. She also started our second game, against England. It was a freezing cold night at the GSP Stadium and, given there was no chance I would be playing, I was rugged up in my trackies and three jumpers and covered in blankets. I had settled in for the night, content to watch the game from the bench. Then, just after the hour mark, when we were 2–0 down, Bre got injured. Staj whirled around in his technical area and called for me to warm up. Panic set in immediately. I threw off the blankets in one fell swoop and started to get ready as fast as I could. I tried to take my tracksuit off over my boots but they wouldn't fit through. The more I tried, the more frantic everything felt. Once I was in just my shorts, I made a move to begin a warm-up run but Jonesy called me over. "We don't have time," he said. The physios were looking at Bre and we only had a couple of minutes tops before I was due in goal. Jonesy started kicking the ball to me to help me warm up quickly but, for some inexplicable reason, he picked a spot right in front of the England bench to do it. All the substitutes were staring as I tried to catch balls. I don't know if it was because I was facing them and could see their eyes on me, or that I was already so frazzled, but I sh*t you not, I could not catch a ball to save my life. I probably faced six volleys and caught one. With each one that slipped through my gloves, my embarrassment bubbled. I was trying so hard to appear chilled about the whole process when, beneath the surface, the opposite was true.

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I rushed to the halfway line, where I needed to be to enter the field of play, and stood next to Staj. He could obviously see how worked up I was, issuing a, "Calm down, you'll be fine." Then his gaze shifted down to my lower legs. "Do you have your shin pads on?" F**k. For the rest of my living days on this earth, I will not truly understand why I did what I did next. The only thing I can think of is I was so high on humiliation following my comedy of errors that perhaps I believed if I ignored this latest blunder it might just go away. I turned to Staj, put my finger to my lips and said, "Shhh." Staj, obviously, was having none of my "I won't tell if you don't" bollocks and simply said, "No, you need to go and get your shin pads."

My mortification peaked. I had to slink back over to our bench and wait for one of the girls to throw me the missing pieces of my kit. When I finally went on, still in my senseless state, I directly disobeyed orders. The doctor and coaching staff had decided my quad wasn't ready for a big goal kick and directed me to play out from the back instead. But I was suddenly determined to smack the ball long. My quad actually felt fine after doing it; my bosses on the bench were fuming. They couldn't figure out why I just wasn't listening. Computer said no once more in the 83rd minute, when a through ball hurtled towards me. I ran out to clear it at the same time as Jodie Taylor, who already had a brace, tried to run onto it. I beat her by a small margin, went to take the kick, and took a big air swing instead. The ball bounced clear over my leg and Taylor continued her run and passed it into the net to complete her hat-trick and England's 3–0 win.

The next day, in our review, Jonesy had a talk with me about always being ready to play, even when I'm not supposed to be playing. I feel sure he had delivered this same message before under less dramatic circumstances. It's amazing how a scarred ego can make stuff stick. That night has never left me. In every single match since, I have been as good as ready to run on at any moment. Even when it's cold, I do not wear long pants over my shorts. I usually have my shin pads on ready to go. It was one of the biggest learning curves of my career.

As it turned out, I started our final group game against Finland and then our fifth-place match against the Czech Republic, both comfortable victories that, of course, both felt significantly better. Then we spent a month in Italy preparing for the World Cup, which was due to start in Canada that June.

My inglorious England episode aside, I must have done something right, because I made the World Cup squad.

And, in a shock to everyone, Bri Davey did not. The selection meetings happened in May at Sydney's Valentine Sports Park, which is the home of Football NSW and where we trained and stayed before the tournament. I was stoked to be told I had made it at all. In my mind, I was in a fight for the third spot with Bubs, and Bri and Lyds had theirs locked up. When I bounced down to Bri's room to tell her the good news – that we would be going to the World Cup together – Steph and a couple of the other girls were already in there, perched on the bunk beds around a crying Bri. Steph looked up, saw me standing in the doorway, and asked if I could please give them a second. I left, a bit shocked at what had clearly just transpired. Bri was a friend and I felt terrible for her. Then I wondered: does this mean I could be second choice? This would be Bubs's fourth World Cup and she was at the time 35. A couple of weeks prior, I was hoping to be third choice; now I was seemingly in the discussion to start at a World Cup – and our opening match was against the USA. Before we left for the airport I made sure I saw Bri and gave her an extra hug. I knew exactly what she would be feeling.

Realistically, I knew that Lydia would be the first choice to start this game. Until, that is, she sustained a minor injury. It wasn't a big deal, just one of those niggly things. But it was enough to rule her out of the game. All of a sudden, I was in the conversation. Not that anybody told me that at the time. But there can be little signs, like where you are positioned in training and whether you play in warm-up friendlies. For instance, I was in goal for a friendly against a boys' team just before the tournament, which I knew meant I was getting close. And guess what happened during this scratch match: one of the boys smacked me in the foot as I came out to clear a ball. I could hardly walk on it and had to leave the field immediately. It was then that Jonesy confirmed what I had suspected, revealing he and Staj were strongly considering throwing me in against the US but that they just couldn't risk it now given two goalkeepers were now dealing with niggles. I wasn't even that disappointed. I was just stoked that I was being talked about as a possibility.

Bubs played in the 3–1 loss, with Lyds and me watching from the bench. My knock turned out to be just an impact injury and I bounced back within a couple of days. But so did Lyds and she was the keeper selected for our second group match against Nigeria – a 2–0 win thanks to Kyah's brace. She also started our third group game – a 1–1 draw with Sweden, which sealed second place in our group – along with our 1–0 round-of-16 win over Brazil and quarter-final loss to Japan. I was okay with all of it – my headspace was still that I knew my place was behind Lyds and she played unreal. The pressure I felt during this time came more from what was happening around the fringes, in the dressing rooms and at training.

Coaches were still giving me a pretty hard time about my attitude. I cannot count how many times I was told I was too laid back, didn't want it enough, laughed too much, talked too much, thought I was better than I was, acted as if I was a starter when I wasn't, hung around the 'big dogs', hung around the 'cool kids'. I wouldn't say I believed all of what I was hearing but it did affect me substantially, and the hangover from each Matildas camp was felt in my outside life. The comments felt relentless. My young psyche didn't know how to process them in a logical manner. What I was being told did not match with my perception of myself and that was confusing. I didn't know how to be within the team environment. I never knew where I stood or how I should act. I became so self-conscious that I didn't actually act like myself a lot of the time. I was trying so hard to be this professional footballer but seemed to fail on every count. I just couldn't figure out what the coaches wanted so I could give it to them.

Even in the changerooms before games, I love dancing around and being a bit silly. The other girls enjoy doing the same thing. Then we switch on in time for the warm-up and everything gets serious. I make a conscious effort to avoid thinking too much about the game too early, because that stresses me out and I overthink the game. The mucking around helps me mentally, yet I wasn't allowed to do it because it appeared as if I wasn't concentrating. This went back to that idea that Sam was allowed to muck around because she goes out and scores goals and performs. Basically, she's Sam Kerr. And she is Sam Kerr – she's incredible. But the message was that we had to earn our own personalities through what we did on the field. Given I was never on the field, this was a perplexing concept. It was rough and it has haunted most of my Matildas career. The ironic result was that, on the rare occasions I was given a game, I made silly mistakes because I was too stressed out trying to act like a 'professional'. Then the coaches believe you played like shit because you're not switched on and aren't taking football seriously enough, and they tell you that. And that cycle continues.

I have carried this negative feedback loop with me my entire career. I am not so blind as to not recognise there were times I could have applied myself more. I guess my point is that I was young and these situations sprouted insecurities I didn't know existed. Over several years, these insecurities grew and any confidence and desire I might have harboured to one day become Australia's first-choice keeper waned. I knew my place within the national team. A game here and there whenever Lyds was injured or needed a rest, and a support person the rest of the time. I also got to hang out with my best friends in camp a few times a year – as long as it wasn't so often that the coaches saw this smart-arse nobody fraternising with the stars of the show. It was difficult to be with Lans and Cait and Sam and Emily on game day anyway. It was the same the following day, because they only had to do recovery and I had to train with the squad members who played few to no minutes.

All of these things combined sent me inward, navel-gazing when I should have been concentrating and quiet when I should have been loud.

MACCA: My Story So Far by Mackenzie Arnold. Image: Penguin Books.

This is an edited extract from MACCA by Mackenzie Arnold with Emma Kemp (RRP $36.99, Penguin) available to purchase on Oct 8. 

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Feature image: Instagram @mackenziearnold.