At 6am on a Sunday morning in November 2022, hundreds of fans and families gathered in a park in Sydney’s inner west to watch a men’s World Cup football match between Australia and Argentina.
The site was awash with dogs, bleary-eyed Sydneysiders clutching coffee cups and eager families hauling blankets. For dozens of young girls in the crowd, though, the Socceroos narrowly losing to Lionel Messi and co were merely a prelude to the main event, to take place months later.
These girls were proudly decked out in Matildas gear, their backs emblazoned with “KERR” and “FOWLER”, their faces painted in green and gold.
For the first time in Australia’s relatively humble football history, it is hosting a World Cup. The significance of this cannot be overstated, and it is all the more thrilling for the representation it will give to women’s football in this country, and to women’s sport more broadly.
For many girls, playing football was not even an option at school. I was forced to spend my formative years standing vacantly on cricket fields – a traumatic and bizarre memory I will carry to my grave. To me, a football was a thing you clutched in your hands and the game involved sweaty men rolling around on the grass together and a not infrequent amount of blood.
Fast forward to 2023, and finally, it is our time.
The growth of football in Australia has been highlighted no more clearly than through the rise to prominence of the Matildas, who first qualified for the World Cup in the 1990s and reached the top four of Fifa’s rankings in 2017.
Now, on home turf and in a delightfully mild climate (yes, it’s winter, but this is Australia), fans are coming to terms with the prospect the national women’s team may very possibly make a deep run in the tournament.
You almost want to whisper it in case you jinx it.
But that’s not the point, of course. Winning isn’t everything. The point is that, for the first time, thousands of people are travelling thousands of kilometres to Australia and New Zealand to get around the biggest women’s sporting event in the world.
The atmosphere at Melbourne’s Federation Square during the men’s World Cup when the winning goal against Denmark went in was incredible. Commentator Tony Armstrong was so enraptured by the moment he lost his scarf and went viral worldwide.
Imagine the collective ecstasy that will engulf the nation if talismanic captain Sam Kerr scores a crucial goal. People will hug strangers. Beers will flow. I’ll lift my 35kg labrador in the air like some sort of sporting sacrifice.
Because to Australians, she is our Lionel Messi, our Cristiano Ronaldo, our Cher. Who did we choose to be flag bearer for our country at the King’s coronation? Sam Kerr. Who sat at the back of the audience like a strange Gothic count? Nick Cave.
Sure, the lay citizen may know very little about the complex inner-workings of the Premier League. Some may still call football soccer. We may be a little hazy on the details of the offside rule.
But we know greatness when we see it. And we sure as hell know how to host a sporting event.
On Sunday 25 June, the Sydney Harbour Bridge was shut down for a parade to celebrate the tournament. (The Sydney Harbour Bridge has closed just twice this year, once for World Pride, and once for Ryan Gosling to film a movie.)
Federation Square has been turned into a fan park. A further eight will be set up across Australia and New Zealand.
Hype has been building for weeks, well exceeding expectations.
Earlier this year, the Matildas’ opening game against Ireland was shifted from Allianz Stadium to the larger Accor Stadium, which has a capacity of more than 80,000, due to the high demand for tickets.
It took just 45 minutes for an additional 35,000 tickets to be sold. Fifa underestimated how psyched we are to host this thing and the passion that is bubbling for women’s sport. Not to mention the joy of an international event finally being on at reasonable times.
There’s a strange excitement that comes with setting punishing phone alarms to watch your team probably lose, but it’s an excitement that has waned over the years that football has grown as a sport in Australia.
I was one of those standing in that early morning glow a few months ago. As I drank a pint of ale and watched a sea of girls in Kerr jerseys, I became teary – not just because I was hungover and had undergone weeks of self-inflicted sleep deprivation.
I didn’t have these women to look to when I was a kid – powerhouses who are not only very good at sport but genuine role models, passionate about social change, diversity, inclusion and acceptance.
This generation does. So I say, bring it on.
