Sasha Grove: "The team is really important to me" | Football Australia

Sasha Grove has a reputation on a football pitch.

She works hard. She runs fast. And – if you are tasked with marking her, or trying to slow her down – you better be prepared to stand your ground, lest you be bundled over by the Canberran coming at you full-throttle.

“All I want to do is help my team win,” the full-back told Football Australia media. “I know the age-old question – would you rather score or assist? I would rather assist, every day of the week.”

The 19-year-old is in Uzbekistan with the CommBank Young Matildas for the AFC U20 Women’s Asian Cup Uzbekistan 2024™. Her on-pitch demeanour is the result of an internal determination to do whatever she can to support those around her.

“Sometimes I look a bit serious, but it’s just because I can’t see, so I’m squinting,” she joked, laughing. “But no… I don’t want you getting past me, you’re not going to score. That’s the end of the story. And I just love driving everyone in front of me to do their absolute best.”

“That’s something I love, the dynamics between all the players that we have on the pitch, because you know what everyone’s capable of, what their potential is. So it’s my job to really help them see that. By doing my best, and doing my job on the pitch, that’s how we are going to achieve that.”

Her love of the team environment grew out of a childhood in competitive running and individual sports.

“Growing enough, I was a competitive runner, and I wasn’t that bad at it either,” she explained, “so individual events was very normal for me, but it stressed me out a lot. I would often cry at starting lines, because I was like, ‘I don’t want to lose.’”

“But there’s something about that camaraderie [of football] at the end of the day for me, that gives me the