Australian football is enjoying something of a moment. Last winter, the men’s national team matched their best ever World Cup performance by reaching the last-16 in Qatar, before this summer, the Matildas went further, all the way to the semi-finals in the women’s equivalent on home soil, both runs greeted with a frenzy unprecedented in a country where rugby and cricket are more embedded and Aussie rules does what it says on the tin.
“The images and footage of the Australian public, it’s something that I don’t think any other sport has been able to do in that regard,” Mat Ryan, the Socceroos No1, tells Standard Sport. “People getting up at all hours of the night to attend public areas and events with giant screens. To be able to have that influence on our country is something where you have to pinch yourself."
