It was a fairytale beginning. In front of a noisy crowd of more than 40,000 fans at Eden Park in Auckland, New Zealand – the lowest-ranked team to host a Women’s World Cup – kicked off the tournament with a surprise 1-0 win against Norway.
On a biting winter night, the opening ceremony was a spectacle befitting the momentous occasion for New Zealand, a nation known more for rugby. In the stands, attenders swung poi (a ball attached to a cord used in traditional Māori dance) distributed on arrival in a nod to tangata whenua, the Indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand, to the rousing tune of the New Zealand national anthem.
