We are not so much watching a national team compete, as a changing nation at play.
The Matildas are contributing to this change in many ways. They’ve overturned misconceptions of women’s sport and more importantly, the place of women in contemporary Australia.
They’ve forced their way to the front through their extraordinary capability, courage and refusal to accept less than everything women deserve and demand that this is where women should be.
Leading, inspiring, staring down the most intense pressure, scoring wonder goals, being considered, treated and paid equally.
They represent every woman overlooked, unheard, not believed, and demand every organisation to ask, who are our Sam Kerrs? Our Mackenzie Arnolds? How many great women have we inhibited, held back, not invested in?
It wasn’t until the Matildas took a stand – supported by their male counterparts, the Socceroos – that equality was possible. Where are the Socceroos in your organisation, the Matildas are asking through their exploits, willing to call for gender equality and an equal Australia?
Sport creates, contributes to and shapes culture and national identity – and Wednesday’s match is interesting for historical reasons.
From my perspective as co-chair of the Australian Republic Movement, the Matildas represent the promise of a future Australia and we see in their deep self-assuredness and confidence, our own. This is amplified by the old rivalry with Australia’s former colonial rulers, England.
The Australia v England rivalry is a very tough match against a fabulous team, nothing more. England is just another team to beat on the path to creating new stories, new heroes, new history.
An historical partner that made a significant contribution to our post-invasion history, but just one of our different story lines along with First Nations and migration.
There’s no inferiority complex, no cultural cringe, no consuming desire to prove ourselves. Just opportunity, ambition and dreams.
The England team will be graciously welcomed to country by the Wangal people before the match, a people that were said by the British crown not to exist and erased in history by the terra nullius lie.
A recognition that did not exist for much of our two country’s most famous sporting contests from the Ashes to rugby union, tennis to rugby league.
This alone signifies the new Australia.
We have advanced in historical understanding and questions are now being asked of England, and particularly Charles, as to when they will join the conversation. As we walk the path of reconciliation, so must every contributor acknowledge the past and both countries share a friendship that should be grounded in truth and justice.
Just as the Matildas are leading the way with courage and ambition, so too should our own head of state represent Australia with equal passion, standing alongside the team. Charles will be wearing the red and white of England. Who is wearing our green and gold, we should ask?
And with the nation having been completely entranced by this brilliant team of Australian women in a tournament that has already obliterated as many attendance and broadcast records as biases, the question will soon become, what next?
For every Australian who watched the Matildas, felt the emotion, cheered for the team and wants more of this feeling: this unity, this sense of limitless possibilities on the global stage, there are four immediate actions to take.
Audit your own thinking and your workplace on gender equality. Loving the Matildas means living their ideals.
Call on sports minister Anika Wells and prime minister Anthony Albanese to properly fund Australia’s largest participant sport. To beat the world at its own game we need a national plan and football’s historic and ongoing contribution to social cohesion, multiculturalism and belonging, so evident this month, deserves this support. Anika cried with us all and it’s clear that Albo’s newfound support is authentic – as an Italian-Australian the game is in his blood, after all. But tears and cheers don’t pay bills and they don’t win World Cups.
Pick up your phone and become a member of your nearest A-League club, right now – before you read on. This is where Cortnee Vine, scorer of the most important penalty in our football history still plays, and is underpaid. Only by lifting up our domestic competitions can we invest in future generations, lower costs to play and feel decades more of these beautiful emotions.
And support the team’s calls to FIFA for equal prize money. Follow their representative organisation, @thepfa and voice your support for their pre-tournament statement in which they call for urgent change.
There will be many issues to discuss in a week’s time when the carnival rolls on from a marvellously organised and record-breaking event, such as the chronic lack of legacy for Indigenous football. But right now the team needs the nation’s energy more than ever before to create more history, after tough matches and the emotional toll of Saturday night.
There are just two games left to reach sporting immortality for a team that has already challenged and changed modern Australia.
Craig Foster is a former Socceroo, broadcaster, author, adjunct professor and human Rights activist. He is co-chair of the Australian Republic Movement and a member of the Australian Multicultural Council
