There are few footballers throughout history who have not only played in a World Cup on home soil, but won it there, too.
Carla Overbeck is one of them.
The FIFA legend was part of the famous USA team of the 1990s that won the first official Women's World Cup in 1991 before captaining the side who lifted the trophy as hosts in 1999.
That was the tournament — and the team — that changed everything for women's football in the United States.
Despite having an operating budget of just $30 million, the event attracted almost 1.2 million people across the month, with an average of 37,000 fans at each game. Television ratings soared, as did media coverage once the tournament was underway.
The final — held in Overbeck's hometown of Pasadena, California — still holds the record for the highest-ever attendance at a Women's World Cup final when 90,185 people watched the USA defeat China on penalties.
It was the watershed moment for women's football in the US, and a moment that both Australia and New Zealand can look forward to when, exactly one year from now, they co-host the 2023 edition.
"They didn't think we could do it," Overbeck remembered at an event in Sydney this week to mark the occasion.
"Most reporters were nay-sayers. They didn't believe we could fill a giant stadium, that we could fill the Rose Bowl.
"It was just so rewarding to let them know that we had a pretty good product, the world brought their best teams, and it was going to be a great show for the people to watch."
And so it was. Indeed, the interest and investment generated after 1999 arguably laid the foundations for the USA to become the next big superpower in women's football, usurping China who had dominated in the 1980s.
The first boost was at the domestic league level. The '99 World Cup led to the establishment of the world's first professionally paid women's football competition, the Women's United Soccer Association, which featured legendary players such as FIFA Player of the Century Sun Wen, former Matildas captain Cheryl Salisbury, Brazilian icon Sissi and Asia's first and only World Cup winning captain Homare Sawa of Japan.
Although that league folded a few seasons later, it laid the foundations for the National Women's Soccer League, now a decade old and widely regarded as one of the best competitions in the world, where almost all the current US women's national team players ply their trade.
That league also kick-started conversations around paying women athletes for their work, something that inspired the current generation players in their fight for equal pay — including World Cup prize money — which they secured from their federation earlier this year.
"That was a big fight that we had to fight," Overbeck said.
"Our federation, I think, grew a lot with us. It was a bumpy road, for sure, but I think they realised the importance of women and supporting them.
"The game has grown so much. And it's really important that women and young girls know that there's an opportunity for them."
Another boost was further down the pyramid, with the '99 World Cup seeing an historic uptake of the sport by women and girls at lower levels.
The US college system was already well-equipped to capture this influx of participants, thanks to Title IX legislation: a law that ensured equal access for women to facilities and sports programs at government-funded universities.
Almost all of the past and present US women's national team players — including Overbeck — emerged through this development system, creating a second "golden generation" who won back-to-back titles in 2015 and 2019.
"Title IX was huge," Overbeck said. "Even before the '99ers, just what women went through to be able to play. All that added up to what we had.
"They've made great strides since I played, and what the women get now in terms of money and support is amazing."
Australia and New Zealand can learn a lot from the impact hosting a Women's World Cup had on football in the United States.
While it was already one of the biggest participation sports in the country, football struggled to cement itself as a dominant code in the United States' multi-sport landscape. Its professional leagues, development pathways, mainstream media coverage and public cut-through constantly lagged behind "bigger" or more entrenched codes.
But, by capitalising on the enthusiasm and investment of the 1999 tournament, funnelling funds into creating new competitions, youth national team programs, grassroots and community facilities, professional opportunities and growing the mainstream profile of its athletes, women's football in the US has flourished.
"The US was behind Europe and all these other countries, as well as having to compete with basketball, American football, baseball," Overbeck said.
Football Australia and the 2023 Women's World Cup team are counting on it.
As part of Wednesday's One Year To Go event, organisers announced an initiative entitled "Unity Pitch", which symbolises FIFA's ongoing, multi-million-dollar investment into much-needed facilities — such as upgraded training sites, community fields and inclusive change-rooms — in order to capture the expected three-fold increase in registrations post-2023.
Football Australia has already secured $230 million in funding from state and federal governments as part of the "Legacy '23" program, where facilities — as well as leadership, tourism and participation — are key pillars.
Australia's top-flight women's competition — the A-League Women — has already begun expanding its season season and adding more teams as it heads towards full-time professionalism, while media coverage and public engagement with women's football continues to grow, thanks to the blossoming profile of the Matildas and the wider rising tide of women's sport.
The women's game is already light-years beyond where it was when players such as Overbeck, Wen, Salisbury and Sissi were playing. It has proven it can fill stadiums, draw billions of television viewers, attract bespoke sponsorship, and crack into mainstream consciousness.
With all the right pieces in place exactly one year from now, just imagine how much further it could go.
