Caitlin Foord

Caitlin Jade Foord (born 11 November 1994) is an Australian professional football player who plays as a forward for FA Women's Super League club Arsenal and the Australia national team.

In 2009, she was named Junior Sports Star of the Year at the Shellharbour Sports Awards.

She also played futsal for the NSW Under 13 team who competed in the Australian Championships in Canberra.

At age 13, she earned her first cap for Australia's under-17 national team.

Foord grew up watching the National Rugby League (NRL).

At the age of 14, Foord signed with Central Coast Mariners ahead of the 2009 W-League season, but did not play in a match for the club.

With the announcement that the Central Coast Mariners would not field a women's team in the 2010–11 W-League season, Foord, along with fellow Mariners players Teresa Polias, Lydia Vandenbergh, and Renee Rollason, switched to nearby club, Sydney FC.

Foord spent four straight seasons with Sydney FC, where she appeared in 44 games and scored 10 goals.

Foord scored her first goal for Sydney FC during a 4–1 win against Adelaide United on 20 November 2010.

It was her only goal during the 2010–11 season.

She was a starting player in 10 of the 11 games she played.

Sydney finished first in the league with a record.

She became the youngest Australian to play at a World Cup in 2011 at the age of 16.

In 2011, Foord was named World Cup Best Women's Young Player, Asian Women's Young Footballer of the Year, and Football Federation Australia's U20 Women's Footballer of the Year.

During the 2011–12 W-League season, Foord started in five of the eleven matches she played and scored two goals.

On 12 November, she scored a goal in a 4–1 win against Newcastle Jets, pouncing on an errant back pass from the Jets defence and coolly slotting the ball into goal.

Sydney FC finished third during the regular season with a record.

Returning to Sydney for the 2012–13 W-League season, Foord scored three goals in eleven matches.

During a match against Melbourne Victory on 8 December, she scored the game-opening goal in the fifth minute.

Sydney finished in fourth place during the regular season with a record.

After defeating Brisbane Roar 3–2 in the semi-finals, Foord helped Sydney FC clinch the championship title with a 3–1 grand final win against Melbourne Victory.

During the 2013–14 W-League season, Foord scored four goals in eleven matches for Sydney FC.

After sitting out many of the early season matches due to a foot injury, she scored a hat trick against Perth Glory in an 8–2 win on 5 January.

Sydney FC finished in second place during the regular season with a record.

The team was eliminated in the semi-finals in a 2–1 defeat against Canberra United.

In March 2013, it was announced that Foord had signed with American team, Sky Blue FC, for the inaugural season of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL).

In 2013, she appeared in 15 games, helping Sky Blue to their only playoff appearance in club history.

She was named to the 2013 NWSL Second XI Team.

Foord returned to Sky Blue for the 2014 NWSL Season and was in the starting lineup for 20 of her 21 appearances.

Sky Blue finished the season in sixth place.

In February 2015, Foord agreed to return to Sky Blue alongside fellow Matildas teammate Sam Kerr.

Due to the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup, they did not join Sky Blue until July.

Foord appeared in the final 10 games of the 2015 NWSL season.

In 2016, she was awarded Asian Women's Footballer of the Year by the Asian Football Confederation.

Raised with her sister Jamie by their mother Simone in Shellharbour, a suburb 100 kilometres south of Sydney in the Illawarra region of New South Wales, Foord attended Illawarra Sports High School.

Her mother would frequently drive Foord three-four hours round-trip to Sydney for training and games: "She'd pick me up straight after school and drive me to Sydney Olympic Park and back four times a week for training – and again on the weekend for a game."

Her sister Jamie recommended to their mother to let Caitlin try football after seeing her play on the playground at school with boys.

"She was just doing so many sports. We took her down and signed her up for the Warilla Wanderers ... I think in the first game she scored six goals."

Foord was the only member of her family to play football.

Foord played for local teams Illawarra Stingrays and the Sutherland Sharks before spending some time at the New South Wales Institute of Sport.