Mat Ryan wanted to freeze time on 100th appearance for Socceroos after penalty save
Moments after leading the Socceroos to the FIFA World Cup with a 2-1 victory over Saudi Arabia, Mat Ryan said he wanted to "freeze time".
Little over eight months earlier, he must have wished for the ability to rewind it.
Languishing on the bench for AS Roma, behind Mile Svilar, and dropped from the Socceroos squad in favour of Joe Gauci, Ryan's time in the Eternal City must have felt endlessly frustrating.
Now he's looking at the eternal glory of being part of another Socceroos World Cup campaign.
Ryan excelled for the Socceroos in Jeddah, capping his 100th appearance for the national team with a superb penalty save from Salem Al-Dawsari's late spot kick.
Had it gone, Saudi Arabia still would not have had enough time to find the four more goals they needed to overhaul the Aussies into the second direct qualification spot from this phase of Asian World Cup qualifying.
But the miraculous save spoke far more about the desire and heart of this Socceroos team, combined with the camaraderie that saw the squad race to embrace their skipper.
"It would be nice if I could work out how to freeze time," Ryan said post-match on Paramount+, before elaborating on his penalty save for ABC Sport Daily.
"It was almost as if fairytales came true," Ryan told ABC Sport.
"Don't get me wrong, I treat every cap as a monumental cap, whether it's my 100th, my 40th, my 43rd, or whatever number it is — I think it's nothing less than what our jersey deserves and our great nation deserves.
"In saying that, to knock up the century and in that fashion is something that I'm going to cherish for a very long time.
"I do absolutely everything I can to produce for the team, thankfully my preparation and opportunity resulted in a nice positive moment there with the penalty save to contribute to the win.
"The cornerstone of this team since I've been involved as a young kid with my first cap all the way through until now is the camaraderie and togetherness, that's the backbone, that's our biggest strength, and I think you've seen that during the celebrations.
"They were aware of the occasion for me and what it meant, for them to get around me like that and celebrate just makes it a more special memory.
"I couldn't ask for a better bunch of boys and people to go into battle with on the pitch come match day and to work side-by-side with.
"I was just happy we could all embrace and share that moment together."
Sharing such a pivotal and defining moment looked like a long shot for Ryan six months ago.
His move to Roma failed to result in any meaningful game time. He did not play a single minute in Serie A, making just one appearance for the Giallorossi in a 4-1 Coppa Italia victory over Sampdoria.
"For sure there were a few doubts there that I had played my last game for the national team," Ryan said.
"No one is ever entitled to play and you have to earn every opportunity.
"One of the non-negotiables in life for anyone who's wanting to achieve something and be successful is you've got to stay strong and resilient when you're facing some adversity.
"Throughout the whole process of it all, the whole journey of this qualification period, I continued to believe in myself, thinking that I am the best man for the job.
"As an individual if you're not thinking that, you're failing at the first hurdle.
"Obviously football and life, it's full of opinions, but I was confident that I could still offer this team something and it was just a matter of sticking to my guns and continuing to work and letting my football do the talking."
A mid-season transfer to RC Lens in France's Ligue 1 sparked a revival in Ryan's fortunes which coupled with being selected to start in the 2-2 away draw with Bahrain late in the year, saw the 33-year-old earn back his spot.
"At the end of the day I just tried to produce as often as I could," Ryan said.
"I'm pretty proud of the way I worked my way back into the position I'm in because I think a lot of people in my scenario could have spat the dummy and it could have been the end of my international career.
"But I'm still hungry, I'm still motivated.
Qualification hadn't been a certainty for the Socceroos early in the campaign.
The Socceroos struggled in their opening two games in the third round of qualifying under Graham Arnold, losing at home to Bahrain and limping to a draw in tough conditions against Indonesia.
Ryan said the group always believed, but new coach Tony Popovic had instilled even more belief in the squad since he came in.
"One thing is that we unite … we are all Australian, and the difficulties that we face being an Australian footballer, trying to travel the world and play overseas in Europe, that's something that no other team has," Ryan said.
"Covering the amount of distance and hardship with all the travel, that kinda hardens us even more and brings us together even more than other nations.
"And part of what makes us Australian is we roll up our sleeves and get on with it and then give it our best crack when it comes to game day and that seems to work best for us."
Conceding two goals on his return against Bahrain on limited game time was not ideal, but since then the Socceroos, with Ryan between the sticks, have conceded just twice in six hours of football.
Indeed, in the last five matches Ryan has only had to face 15 shots on goal, a testament to his defensive organisation as much as anything.
All this culminated with his spectacular penalty save to preserve the Socceroos' 2-1 victory in Jeddah and fly through into the World Cup finals.
"It's an exciting time to be a part of this team," Ryan said.
"I hadn't beaten Japan before in my career. Direct qualification, I haven't done personally before.
"We're already doing something that teams I've been a part of haven't done.
"It's nice to have ticked those boxes now and I'm looking forward to continuing ticking many more boxes as we move forward."
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