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The dressing-room underneath the Stade de Nice was a cacophony of sound and movement as Steph Catley sat down on a chair, squeezed a stream of water into her mouth, and took a deep breath.
Tony Gustavsson was a few feet away, hastily organising the slide projector that beamed up images snapped by his analysts only a few minutes before the shell-shocked players walked off the pitch and filed into the tunnel.
It was half-time in Australia's second Paris Olympic group game against Zambia and, against all expectations, they found themselves trailing 4-2 against the lowest-ranked side in the tournament.
Catley, the captain's armband sitting tight around her bicep, could have easily slid into despair then and there.
This was her first major tournament leading the Matildas, and they were staring down the barrel of what could have been their earliest Olympic exit in more than two decades.
She looked around the room, observing her coach and teammates. As soon as everybody sat down, Gustavsson began his half-time talk, his voice steady, his gestures direct, his eyes clear and focused.
The players spoke, too. Each of them knew exactly what was going wrong. Each of them had ideas of how to fix it. What started as a scramble of sound soon turned into a hardened battle plan, a map outlined by Gustavsson's tactics and filled in by the players' voices.
Then, once the new tactics were clear, they talked about mindset. For Catley, this was where she knew she was needed most. A natural leader — calm, articulate — she knew her job during the chaos of this game would be keeping her teammates looking forward. Staying positive. Not giving up.
But even a true believer like Catley must have thought the Matildas would require a miracle to escape this catapulting, nonsensical match.
And who could have blamed her for a potential lapse of faith after she watched the ball sail into Australia's net just 40 seconds into the game, curled beautifully off the boot of Zambia's star striker Barbra Banda?
Beads of sweat hadn't even begun to form on Catley's forehead before her leadership was required. She clapped her hands, her face neutral, and shouted a word of encouragement to her flummoxed teammates: Come on, don't look down. Let's go again.
Alanna Kennedy's headed equaliser five minutes later was not a cause for celebration so much as a kind of administrative correction, fuelled by frustration at their sudden need for early atonement.
The centre-back barely said a word as she turned in the soft grass and jogged back into her own half, impatient to wrestle the narrative of the game back into Australia's control.
And they did. For about 15 minutes. But the luck that football almost always needs had already begun to desert them.
A curling corner from Catley looked destined for the top corner only to be headed off the line by a Zambian defender; a wide-open goal was left begging after Clare Hunt skewed her shot wide; a cross by Mary Fowler sailed right onto the head of Katrina Gorry, but she sent it over the crossbar.
Little did they know that the celestial pendulum of this game had swung back into Zambia's favour, with Rachael Kundananji giving her side the lead in the 20th minute after a simple sprint behind Ellie Carpenter led to a low, hard shot that pinged off the far post before spinning into the net.
Seven minutes later, with luck firmly in their favour now, Zambia made it 3-1. A deep free kick that was punched away by Mackenzie Arnold fell directly to the feet of Banda as though placed there by some invisible hand. She then took a touch and rifled the ball past the entire gaggle of Matildas and across the line.
The pendulum swung back in Australia's favour when the ball found Hayley Raso leaping unchallenged at the back post a minute later, but seemed to dip away almost as quickly as it appeared, with both Raso and Caitlin Foord both missing one-on-one chances as the first half barrelled toward its close.
How must Catley have felt when, just as the assistant referee held up their board signalling 4 minutes of added time, a series of unfortunate events off a corner saw the ball clang off Banda's leg and spin agonisingly around a scrambling Arnold and into the bottom corner to give Zambia a 4-2 lead?
Was the Matildas' magic fading away right before her very eyes?
Loading...And so she sat in the dressing room, breathing deeply, listening to the voices ricocheting off the walls around her and made a decision.
She had to keep going. She had to keep them going. Because what other choice was there?
"That was probably the [loudest], most full-of-communication change-room I've ever been in as part of this team," the captain said afterwards.
"I think most players on the field had solutions. The coaches had solutions. The main thing was just keeping it positive.
"We created a lot of chances that we thought we could have finished. I don't know what the statistics were in that first half but I know we had some really good chances that normally we would have finished.
"So we knew that we would create. We just had to get some on the scoreboard. And in the end, we did."
But not before Zambia truly tested Australians' faith, scoring their fifth goal in the 54th minute after a curling Banda free kick found the white-blonde head of Kundananji, the only green shirt charging through a wall of solid yellow.
Gustavsson had seen enough by that point and decided to try and create his own luck. A triple-change at the 57th minute saw veteran striker Michelle Heyman enter the fray, a player whose very presence here has been shaped by Lady Luck herself. The 35-year-old retired from the national team in 2019 but Sam Kerr's unfortunate ACL injury saw the former Olympian return to the fold for Paris.
And she brought some of her luck with her.
Less than a minute after coming on, a fortunate bobble in Zambia's six-yard box saw the ball fall directly at Heyman's feet. With her back to the goal, the striker instinctively clipped it with her heel, sending it unexpectedly towards the shin of a back-tracking Zambian defender, who clanged it into the net to make it 5-3.
And so back the pendulum swung. Caitlin Foord had a goal chalked off for offside a minute later, but it mattered not. In the 64th minute, Australia was awarded a free kick just outside Zambia's penalty area. Catley, feeling the tightness of that armband, stepped up and rifled a shot flat and hard directly towards the bright pink shirt of Zambia's goalkeeper.
As it sailed through the air, she must have felt her stomach drop: Surely Musole will catch it and the Matildas will be scrambling to defend a Zambian counter once again.
But she didn't. Somehow, for some miraculous reason, the ball slipped through Musole's fingers and bounced, almost comically, over the white paint.
The Matildas' luck returned in ever-increasing waves. A late VAR check on an accidental stamp on Caitlin Foord's foot awarded Australia a penalty, which Catley coolly swiped into the net to bring the scores level.
The pendulum didn't swing so much as fully detach from the game itself, flying off into the Mediterranean Sea nearby. Banda thundered down the pitch chasing a long ball, only for Kennedy to throw her long legs in the way and stop the counter just in time.
Foord zipped and jigged down the left before cutting a perfect pass back for Heyman, whose shot smacked off the belly of a Zambian defender.
The striker crashed through three green shirts in midfield a few minutes later before laying off for fellow substitute Kaitlyn Torpey, who sprinted in behind her defender and sliced a low cross in behind that was gathered by Musole before it could arrive at Foord's feet.
Kennedy bundled Banda over from behind just outside her own penalty area, earning a yellow card and inviting another set-piece goal, only for Arnold to smack the ball out of the air.
And then the moment arrived, the clarity in all the chaos. As the clock ticked into the 90th minute, Catley gathered the ball inside Zambia's half and looked up.
Yellow and green shirts spun and zipped and crackled across the pitch, but through it all she could see Heyman, with her distinctive white flame of hair, tearing along the back line and curving her run towards goal.
Catley put her foot through the rubber, threading an inch-perfect pass through two lines of players and directly into Heyman's path. The striker took a single touch into the box, opened up her hips, and slid the ball past the diving Musole and into the net.
It was miracle after miracle after miracle stitched together with persistence and tactics and that now-famous "never say die" motto.
"When you coach a group of players like this, you never stop believing ever," Gustavsson said afterwards.
"Is it a crazy game? Yes. But being 5-2 down in the 55th minute, I don't think any team has ever done this in tournament football, men or women.
"But it says everything about the 'never say die' attitude in this group.
"We're focusing on the spirit and the energy we've got from this to get this done and turn the game around, to be down 5-2 against Zambia and still win the game. That's where we're focused right now."
It was this deep self-belief that was missing the last time the Matildas were at this stadium, back in 2019, watching the Women's World Cup semifinals slip from their grasp in a penalty shootout against Norway.
Catley was the only player to score that day. But a lot has changed since that nightmare in Nice. Australia's newest captain has banished her team's ghosts, delivering an unforgettable match shaped in her image: a game of relentless positivity, of forcing your own luck, of living by the spirit this side has become so beloved for.
The full-time whistle was a kind of catharsis, releasing the Matildas from the grip of a potential disaster. They escaped, somehow, in the ways that they have done before, with magic and miracles operating somewhere underneath burning muscles and sweat-soaked shirts.
How much longer can this last? They needed more than one miracle in Tokyo, qualifying for the quarter-final as the third-best, third-placed team — the absolute last side to slide under the closing doorway of the knockouts — before coming from behind twice against a fancied Team Great Britain to crash into the semifinals.
And while they've secured the three points they desperately needed today to keep their Olympic hopes alive, they will probably need more to escape this rampaging group stage.
They need to hope the USA, who have already qualified for the quarter-final, rest their best players in Thursday morning's third and final group game to give them a better chance of snatching at least a point.
If they don't, they need to hope Canada, who were docked six points for using drones to spy on opponents, don't improve on their already-superior goal difference to go through as the better-placed third-placed side after defeating France this morning, or that Zambia doesn't somehow demolish Germany to leapfrog them on the table.
They need to hope that their bodies and minds can back up after yet another earth-shaking game of tournament football that takes from them as much as it gives.
Miracles have gotten the Matildas this far. Can miracles take them further still?