"Standing on the halfway line with the girls, it was a bit nerve-wracking but I was just trying to focus on myself ... it felt like that time was going for a lifetime and then the rest just happened."

Sally Shipard powered home Australia's first spot-kick.

Then, captain and goalkeeper Melissa Barbieri watched Yun Song-mi put North Korea's second penalty wide of her left goal post, and things were in Australia's hands.

Kylie Ledbrook, Gill and Heather Garriock successfully dispatched their respective spot-kicks, opening the door for Simon to finish the job.

The teenager sauntered up to the spot, adjusted the ball and drove it into the top corner, sending her teammates into ecstasy.

"I got up to the spot, picked my spot and executed it how I wanted to," Simon said.

"I was just glad to see the water shattering off the back of the net and to turn around and have so much happiness and excitement and joy of all the girls running towards me.

"We did a bit of a stacks on - it was just a really memorable and exciting moment."

Simon, Kerr, Elise Kellond-Knight, Tameka Yallop and Lydia Williams are just some of those 2010 squad members who have gone on to become core senior Matildas, maintaining the "can beat anyone" mentality that bore fruit a decade ago.

The Matildas of 2010 arguably didn't receive the recognition they deserved for their breakthrough accomplishment, which came several years before women's sports exploded into the mainstream - and still hasn't been repeated.

There was little fanfare upon returning home - certainly nothing like the plaudits their Socceroos counterparts would receive nearly five years later.

There aren't many polished highlights on social media, with scratchy old videos the best way to re-live May 30, 2010.

But it's an achievement that lives long in the Matildas' memories.

"It's funny because we don't have that ability to re-live it. While it was a huge and massive achievement at the time, it wasn't in an era where a lot of attention was brought to it," Barbieri told AAP.

"We felt like we'd done something massive but then when we came back home it was almost 'ho hum, back to the humdrum of being a female footballer.'

"In the moment we knew what we had done because we had beaten some pretty big talents in that Japan team to actually qualify for the World Cup.

"Then the icing on the top was winning the final but we certainly didn't understand how good we were at the time until you look back on it."