Goalkeepers are said to be crazy. That's not quite true, although it is fair to say that they are rather different to the run-of-the-mill soccer player in wanting to stop goals rather than score them.
It's also said that they are born, not made, and while that is not always true (it's surprising the number of top-flight keepers who went between the posts in their mid to late teens after realising they probably weren't going to make it as outfield players) there invariably is an innate quality to those who take up this unique position.
Many are extroverts, some are definitely show-offs, and few are introverts. Many are genuine team leaders, directing teammates and initiating attacking moves from the last line of defence.
Lydia Williams, the Matildas' No.1, is not quite sure where she fits into that list.
Melbourne City goalkeeper Lydia Williams in action against arch-rival Melbourne Victory.Credit: AAP
She's certainly not a show-off, but she is a strong character who provides guidance and leadership from behind.
An organiser – she says her goalkeeping hero was Peter Schmeichel, the Manchester United legend, because of the way he used to roar at his teammates and sort the defence out – she also likes to play from the back, beginning the play with passes to teammates rather than just booting it long to a contest in the middle of the field.
Athletic and agile, Williams also has an indomitable spirit.
It's something she has needed to conquer the litany of serious injuries, including two knee reconstructions, that have hampered her career and reduced the number of appearances she would probably have made for the national team had she been in good health her entire career.
Lydia Williams with fellow Indigenous Matildas and City teammate Kyah Simon.Credit: FFA
Her life experience, both on the pitch and off it, has taught her never to get too far ahead of herself, so she never sounds down about it.
Her parents were both spiritual people (her late father Ron was an Indigenous elder in Western Australia while her mother Diana, an American, is currently a pastor in a Christian church in Canberra) and while she is not someone to ram faith down her teammates' throats, that religious and spiritual dimension to which she has been exposed all her life has given her a sense of self that some athletes lack.
Goalkeeper Lydia Williams has a laugh at a recent Matildas training session.Credit: AAP
Williams is Indigenous through her father and his family, while she also holds an American passport through her mother's background – handy when it comes to getting a spot on a team in the US' NWSL as she doesn't have to come as an import.
That duality of background gave her a very different take on life, as she explains.
Lydia Williams is a qualified zookeeper.Credit: Kate Leith
"I was born on the south coast of WA and I lived in Kalgoorlie until 11, then Mum got a job in Canberra. We all moved when I was nearly 12 when my mum got a job as director and principal of Canberra College of Theology," Williams says.
"Both my parents were missionaries when I was growing up. My dad passed away about 13 years go, but when we lived in Kalgoorlie we used to go to different Aboriginal communities and they would preach and try to help the people there in poverty, battling with domestic violence and a drinking culture."
Her parents came together in the most remarkable of ways.
"My mum worked on Wall Street and decided to be a missionary in Australia. She met my dad on one New Year's night. They wrote to each other, and it was through their letters that he asked her to marry him. They had met once in the middle of the desert. She had to go back to New York. They wrote letters to each other, a year later he asked her to marry her and she left to go to Australia."
"My dad lived in the middle of a rubbish dump for a little while. Our family is a part of the stolen generation. My mum was in a military family and lived in New York in the 1970s.
"Both of them had gone through adversity, so when I was growing up and living in the desert and travelling a lot I have always been very conscious of other people and never judging. It's something I like to live by, but I wouldn't go around preaching. Everyone has their own story and how they live, so for me I am just happy being the way I am.
"It was weird, during Christmas or Thanksgiving one side of the table was kangaroo tails, the other side was pumpkin pie and turkey. It's definitely two sides to the story."
She is proud of her Aboriginal heritage and the understanding of "otherness" that it gave her.
"When I was young, Dad taught me how to live off the land, and when we travelled he taught me how to shoot a gun, hunt for kangaroos. For me it's something special. I don't think a lot of people get that opportunity.
"When I was growing up I did tribal dancing too. It's something that has been a big part of me, but living in Melbourne and Canberra they don't have that rich culture there."
Animals have also been a big part of Williams' life. She may be the only Australian international, male or female, who is a qualified zookeeper.
Women have rarely been able to earn enough money to make soccer a full-time career, until relatively recently. Thus she, like most of her colleagues of a similar age, had to make ends meet with jobs in between seasons and international tours.
"I worked at a zoo for four years, I got my zookeeping degree or certificate. I have always grown up with animals. We had kangaroos when I was growing up, we had chickens, doves, dogs in our backyard, so that was something I really enjoyed doing," she says.
"I have also worked as a restaurant server, a physio assistant, a few other things, but that's probably been my longest stint, when we actually had time to either study or work full-time. When we weren't making enough I worked as a zookeeper and I enjoyed it."
The bit about goalkeepers being born not made? It certainly looks that way in Williams' case, as she explains how she took up the sport.
"I started playing when I was about eight years old, and that was just for fun with friends at school, just having a kick around," she says.
"When I got a little bit older Mum and Dad got me into playing for a school team in Kalgoorlie, and then when we moved to Canberra and I didn't know anyone – we had gone from one side of the country to the other – [and] my mum said, 'As you don't have any friends, you don't know anyone, we need to get you having a life, meeting people.'
"They joined me up in basketball, football, athletics and all these sports teams.
"I grew up playing in the desert, playing AFL with all the Indigenous kids – out in the bush, AFL, it is the big thing. I learnt how to kick and catch, playing barefoot out in the desert.
"When I moved to Canberra I actually came just after registration for the season. Pretty much all the teams had been filled except for the position of goalkeeper.
"I was like, OK, I will do that and I ended up being so good at it that I stayed in that place.
"Going from a school team to a proper club was a really big step up for me. It was lot more serious, training four times a week, you had to recover, we were having team outings, we were travelling here, you had to pay, so there were all these extra things that I had no idea about.
"But I just kind of went along with it. I still enjoyed it ... then all of a sudden we did really well in a big competition called the Kanga Cup. That's held in Canberra every year. It helped push my name a little bit. Then I joined the ACT development team and from there I got serious.
"I was about 13 then, and I had my very first goalkeeping coach. When I turned 15 I got in touch with Paul Jones, who was at the time with the AIS boys in Canberra. I met him, and we worked together ever since then. He is the national team goalkeeping coach now. We both made it at the same time!"
Williams' road to the top sounds straightforward, and in a way it was, simply because of her natural talent.
"My first proper club was the Tuggeranong Rosellas. I was probably there for two or three years, then I went to Woden Valley after that. After that I started making ACT teams, and the state teams, then I made my first national camp when I was 16," Williams says.
"I made camp, but I didn't really know what I was going for.
"I made my first tour when I was just 17. I was with the national team, but I still wasn't really aware of what I was doing.
"These days there are girls out there who have dreamed about it for a long time. For me, when I was younger I didn't know what I was doing."
Like many top athletes, she was always much more interested in playing the game than watching.
"I wasn't too much into watching football until I started making teams. It was SBS that used to have it on late at night or early in the morning, an hour-long highlights show. I remember watching that, it was in the Beckham days, and I thought that was pretty cool," she says.
"My favourite has always been Peter Schmeichel. I remember watching old videos of him, going 'oh, wow, that's a pretty cool goalkeeper' and thinking it was something I wish I could do.
"I loved the way he yelled at his players and demanded everything.
"There are so many photos of me just yelling. The girls all say, 'What were you yelling about?', and I say, 'I don't really know, to be honest.' "
But it hasn't been all smooth sailing, as the injuries and the worries about whether she could come back in top form have had to be dealt with.
Williams stuck to her home-town team Canberra until last year when she shifted to the all-conquering Melbourne City. They weren't quite as clear of the pack as they had been a year earlier, but they still got the job done and won a second grand final in succession by beating Perth Glory, giving Williams a title in sky blue to add to the awards she picked up in Canberra's green.
Melbourne City's dominance is not quite so pronounced now, which, she says, is a good thing.
"Other teams are investing much more in internationals, facilities, training set-ups, the clubs are realising that they need to compete if they are going to beat us," Williams says.
"The competition is obviously healthy now. All bets are off, everyone is out to try and win. A lot of teams now have Matildas or other national team players. It gives a push to make sure that training programs are better."
Williams has also played for several years in America's burgeoning women's league.
"I have played about five seasons there. I have dual citizenship, a US passport through my mother. It's been quite handy that I don't have to be classed as an import. I have played for West New York Flash, Chicago Redstars when the league first started, then I played with Houston for two years, then I got traded to Seattle this final year, and I will probably be back at Seattle."
So now that the Matildas are beating the world's top teams, it's fair to ask Williams how far can you go. The Asian Cup and the World Cup are looming: can you win the lot?
"I think so, why not? It's funny, we have never had this pressure before, maybe not pressure so much, but expectations," she says.
"People are going out there expecting the forwards to score, expecting the goalkeepers to save it, expecting all these tactical changes from the coaching staff.
"That's something new we are dealing with now, and I think we are going pretty well as a group in handling that new-found expectation and the media and outside pressure."