While all competitive sport is guided by a single overarching plot — who will be the winner? — sometimes what makes sport so memorable is what happens elsewhere; the array of characters and storylines, emotions and drama, that occur away from or alongside the main action.
So as our eyes turn towards India for the 2022 Women's Asian Cup, in which the Matildas are expected to reclaim the title they last held in 2010, here are some of the other intriguing narratives we could see unfold over the next two weeks.
Sam Kerr becoming Australia's all-time leading goal scorer
It seems almost predestined: Twelve years after Sam Kerr scored her first international goal for Australia, the Matildas captain is set to become the country's all-time leading goal scorer at the very same tournament.
In 2010, Kerr, then a 16-year-old winger, scored the Matildas' third goal in a 3-1 defeat of South Korea in the group stage of the Women's Asian Cup.
Kerr came on as a substitute that day, replacing veteran striker Lisa De Vanna, who held the women's national team goal-scoring record (47) until she was surpassed by Kerr in 2019.
The goal itself wasn't as glamorous or as classy as what we've come to expect from the Chelsea striker — in fact, the ball seemed to deflect off her backside and into the net after a failed Korean clearance — but it was the first time Kerr pulled out what has since become her iconic backflip celebration as she helped her team on its way to its first Asian Cup trophy.
Kerr currently sits on 49 international goals, just one away from the current all-time record-hold held by Tim Cahill, who scored his 50th goal for Australia in October 2017 before retiring.
The Matildas skipper brought up her 49th goal in last year's friendly series against Brazil but failed to find the back of the net in either of the following two games against the USA — the final hit-out for the Matildas before this week's Asian Cup campaign.
She has been waiting for some time, then, to bring up her half-century.
Kerr is almost certain to not just equal but surpass the national record this tournament, and if she's able to do it within the next three group games against Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand, she'll also have achieved the feat in fewer matches than Cahill, who took 108 games to crack 50.
Having finished runner-up in FIFA's Best Female Player of the Year award on Tuesday, and off the back of Golden Boot and title-winning seasons with Chelsea in England's Women's Super League, Kerr will almost certainly go down in history as Australia's best-ever goal scorer within the next fortnight, regardless of how far the Matildas go. You'll want to be watching when she does.
Can China rekindle its continental dominance?
It may have fallen down the international pecking order over the past decade, but China remains the most historically dominant side when it comes to the Asian Cup.
The current world number 19 has won more than twice as many continental titles as the next best-performing countries (North Korea and Taiwan, which have three wins each).
This includes seven consecutive championships between 1989 and 1999, a period in which China also finished in the top four in the 1995 and 1999 Women's World Cups. In fact, China hasn't finished lower than fourth in the Asian Cup since it first entered the competition.
However, the last few years has seen China fade from view as other Asian nations such as Australia, Japan, and South Korea have made up ground. It finished third at the last two editions of the Asian Cup and fourth in 2010. It's also begun to slip down the global ladder, only making it to the quarter-finals of the 2015 Women's World Cup while being bundled out of the round of 16 in 2019.
It has partly been an issue of succession. Once boasting the FIFA World Player of the Century in Sun Wen and cracking into the top five in the world rankings in the early 2000s, China did not appear to have a long-term strategy in place for when its golden generation of the 1990s retired.
That could all soon change, though.
In 2016, the Chinese government unveiled a 50-year plan that it says will make the country a "world football superpower" by 2050. This plan includes building more facilities to the tune of at least 70,000 new pitches and 20,000 new training centres, streamlining development pathways for its enormous local population (particularly at youth level), and capitalising on its booming club-football economy.
China's Asian Cup squad speaks to this transitional moment, with nine players with 10 caps or fewer called up to complement a much more experienced core of 100+ cap players including Wang Shuang, Zhang Rui, Wang Shanshan, Li Ying, and Lou Jiahui.
Having pushed Australia to the limit during Olympic qualifiers back in early 2020, forcing the Matildas to score a stoppage-time equaliser to ensure smoother passage to Tokyo, China is poised to catapult back to the top of the Asian women's game. The question is whether the next two weeks will be the springboard.
A tournament debut for a potential future giant
While some nations such as China, Taiwan, Japan and Thailand have been mainstays in the Asian Cup since its inception in 1975, there is one nation for whom the 2022 event will be its entry to the international football stage.
Iran will be participating in the tournament for the first time after a surprise defeat of 2018 hosts Jordan. Having tried and failed for the last three editions, the Iranians finally clinched their first finals berth with a dramatic 4-2 penalty shootout win in the deciding qualifier last September.
As the tournament's lowest-ranked side at 72, there are no huge expectations on Iran to go much further than it already has in its historic qualification. It's a far different prospect on the men's side, where Iran is one of Asia's powerhouse national teams.
But the benefit of having few expectations is that Iran now has every opportunity to exceed them, and head coach Maryan Irandoost — the daughter of former Iranian men's national team player Nosrat Irandoost – has every confidence that this will be the start of a new era for the women's game in the country.
"When your team is among the top 12 in Asia and will soon participate in the most prestigious national women's football tournament, then it will definitely have a positive impact on Iranian women's football," she told the AFC website.
"I expect that, with proper planning, our women's national teams will be organised in other age groups and a five-year plan for the growth and development of women's football will be implemented.
"If the support from the Football Federation Islamic Republic of Iran and the people of IR Iran continues, I promise you that we will reach the FIFA Women's World Cup in the next five years."
Having dominated women's futsal across Asia for the past five years, winning each of the past two AFC Women's Futsal Asian Cups, Iran now has an opportunity to translate that small-sided success into one on a bigger stage.
New format, new opportunities
There are arguably four nations for whom lifting the 2022 Asian Cup is a realistic possibility: Australia, Japan, China, and South Korea.
However, that doesn't mean that the tournament is meaningless for the "second-tier" Asian nations for whom the trophy is just out of reach.
In fact, this edition of the Asian Cup will be more important than ever for some of these emerging teams, given the tournament doubles as a qualifying path to next year's Women's World Cup – and a gateway to all the extra funding and visibility that comes with it.
Having featured just eight teams for the past four editions, the 2022 Asian Cup has been expanded to include 12 teams for the first time. This move is in lock step with FIFA's decision to expand the 2023 Women's World Cup from 24 to 32 teams, meaning Asia is guaranteed an extra spot.
In addition, because Australia qualifies for 2023 as a co-host, the top-six Asian Cup spot it will likely occupy will instead be contested by the next best-placed nations in the pecking order thanks to the repechage rule.
In other words, five Asian nations (excluding Australia) will now qualify for the 2023 tournament, while two more teams will advance to an intercontinental play-off, which means we could see at least two Asian debutants at next year's tournament.
Based on recent trends in form and qualifying results, those in contention include Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Myanmar, and Taiwan.
The ripple effects of a World Cup appearance can be immense for these smaller nations. Thailand, for example, was the fifth Asian nation to qualify for the past two World Cups, and while it didn't make it out of the group stage either time, it did win the country's first ever World Cup game in 2015 after a 3-2 victory over Ivory Coast.
The Thai team also drew international media attention to the lack of investment and professional opportunities for its players when, at the 2019 tournament in France, it suffered the biggest-ever loss in the tournament, going down 13-0 to eventual champions USA.
For these developing nations, as well as those debuting or returning after a long absence such as India (last appearance 2003), Indonesia (last appearance 1989), their performances at the Asian Cup could be the start of a whole new future for women's football back home.
So while the Asian Cup might not mean much to the bigger nations that regularly reach its pointy end (although they'll now also be competing for prize money for the first time), it matters a great deal – and perhaps even more — for the national teams still trying to grow in their shadow.
Can Japan's 'next gen' make it three in a row?
Given Japan won the past two editions of the Asian Cup, you would assume it will come into the 2022 tournament as the overwhelming favourite.
However, like China, Japan has experienced periods of turbulence at the national-team level over the past five years and it appears to be some way off recapturing the form that saw it win the Women's World Cup in 2011 and finish runner-up to the USA in 2015.
Despite winning the 2018 Asian Cup with a 1-0 win over Australia, Japan was bundled out of the World Cup at the round of 16 stage the following year after some underwhelming performances.
That trend continued into the rescheduled Tokyo Olympics last year, when the hosts scraped through to the knockout stage in third place after a slim 1-0 defeat of Chile in the group before losing to eventual silver medallists Sweden in the quarter-final.
This has partly been due to a similar lack of succession plan and a crawling transition from one generation of players to the next. But this is also where Japan has the advantage over nations like China and Australia: a blossoming youth national team program.
Japan's Asian Cup squad features nine of the players who won the U-20 Women's World Cup in 2018 and ten players under the age of 23. Just one player – captain Saki Kumagai – has over 100 caps for Japan as new head coach Futoshi Ikeda (who oversaw Japan's U-20 and U-17 programs before being appointed late last year) ushers in a new generation of Japanese talent.
This acceleration of young players is in addition to Japan becoming the first Asian nation to implement a fully professional women's league, the WE. League, in 2021, ensuring that Japan's core of emerging players have access to full-time football outside of national team duty.
So while they may not be outright favourites heading into their Asian Cup title defence, Japan's work behind the scenes almost guarantees they'll be the heaviest hitters for many editions to come.
