The Matildas effect. That’s the phrase de jour to describe the paradigm-shifting impact of Tony Gustavsson’s side across the Women’s World Cup. Across a remarkable month, rating records fell, crowd markers smashed and the public were enraptured. By its end, it felt like Australia had been forced to recalculate not just what was possible for women’s football or women’s sport, or football or sport, for that matter, but its cultural touchpoints.
Now, two months on, Australia’s domestic league, the A-League Women (ALW), returns. It resumes against a backdrop of expectation and aspiration; a staggeringly successful home World Cup laying fertile ground to grow the league’s profile, spur further investment and bring greater attention to the players, teams, stories and football that populates it.
Every member of the Matildas squad that the country fell in love with across July and August was at some point in the league. A handful have remained in Australia to play in the coming season. This is the league where the next generation develops, right before fans’ eyes. Surely that should mean something, right?
Capturing the momentum of the World Cup represents the greatest opportunity the league will ever get to boost its fortunes and reach a newly engaged public. At least 4.9 million people were glued to their screens as Cortnee Vine guided a side-footed penalty beyond Solène Durand to send the Matildas to the semi-finals of their home tournament. An astounding 11.15 million watched on days later as Australia fell 3-1 to England, the largest TV figures since current records began in 2001. It wouldn’t require a large proportion of those watching to make a tangible difference to the league’s fortunes – demonstrated by the record membership sales by half the league’s clubs ahead of the season and sellout opening round fixtures.
Vine, a key figure for the defending champions, Sydney, has been re-signed as a marquee and made the face of the league’s marketing efforts. There was speculation that she was headed overseas, so her return is a core component of the league’s efforts to engage the World Cup audience (and a handy boost for the Harboursiders’ title defence). Vine is joined by national teammates Kyah Simon at the Central Coast, Tameka Yallop at Brisbane and Lydia Williams at Melbourne Victory as part of a strategic league push. Elsewhere, notable international and World Cup figures such as Emily Gielnik, Elise Kellond-Knight, Chloe Logarzo, Sarina Bolden, Hannah Wilkinson and Rebekah Stott will also feature this season.
The addition of the Mariners as an expansion side will bring the league up to 12 teams in 2023-24 and allow it to stage a full home-and-away season – the first of any of Australia’s women’s football codes to do so. The cathartic joy that the league had finally reached this point was plain to see on the face of Logarzo at Tuesday’s season launch event, the long-advocated move representing a critical step towards full professionalism and year-round employment for Australian players: “We’ve waited 16 years for this.”
Importantly, a proper season gives supporters old and new greater scope to engage and build connections with the league and those that inhabited across an extended period. Often, it can feel like women’s leagues are gone as soon as they arrive; minor injuries become season-ending, an adverse run of form early wipes you from contention and storylines end before they begin. But in the ALW, there’s now a chance for more.
Yet, this is Australian football, the fatalistic game’s history is littered with missed opportunities.
A once-in-a-lifetime home World Cup is just that: once-in-a-lifetime. The tournament has tilled the soil but it also represents a Rubicon moment. There will never be a better juncture than now. The A-Leagues commissioner, Nick Garcia, has said the goal is for the league to become a destination for players around the world. But goals such as this require long-term, sustained investment and planning. During the World Cup, Kellond-Knight saliently observed that it captured imaginations not just because it offered elite football but also a high standard of stadiums, coverage, facilities and more. That’s the end point. Players need to be put in positions to succeed and a substandard product on or off-field won’t induce sustained engagement.
While it’s easy to say that something has changed in Australia, determining what that was or if its impact will usher in a new era for the ALW as opposed to a short-term sugar hit is difficult. The Matildas effect could still be without definition: its biggest beneficiary whoever can mobilise it for their own goals and means and define it.
It will take years to know if the ALW can do this, the goal isn’t just to set records in round one of 2023-24 but to have them back the next week, the next month and the next season. That journey begins this week.
