‘Biggest win’: The five dirty words crushed by Matildas

You definitely didn’t know that the Matildas would win when their captain and talisman Sam Kerr pulled out before the match due to a calf strain suffered in the team’s final training session, though you dared to dream that this champion Matildas team could be bigger than its champion.

You couldn’t even be sure that the Matildas would win when stand-in captain Steph Catley slammed that sweetly struck penalty into the top left corner of the net in the 52nd minute, because Ireland fought like cornered leprechauns to the end.

The moment you knew the Matildas would win?

It was a moment that never actually happened. Not once all evening, on the TV coverage or anywhere else of note, did you hear this match billed as women’s sport.

It was just sport. This was not women’s football. It was just football.

That, right there, was a massive victory for the Matildas and all sports fans, regardless of the score.

Here’s a thing you might not know. The men’s World Cup is officially called the FIFA World Cup. By contrast, the women’s World Cup is the FIFA Women’s World Cup, with the gender of the players in the official title.

Australians know better than FIFA. We have taken the Matildas to heart and think of them as one of our beloved national sporting teams, end of story.

The team’s name is all the evidence you need. You know you’ve gained full acceptance in Australian life when you have a nickname, and the Matildas even have a nickname for their nickname – with many people nowadays calling them the “Tillies”.

Unquestionably, the Matildas have kicked a goal with middle Australia. But they’ve also won the diehards. Your correspondent can report this having watched Thursday night’s World Cup opener at a live site set up by Sydney’s Bayside Council in a football-mad precinct on the shores of Botany Bay.

This part of Sydney has long been football heartland, home to Johnny Warren, the late great Socceroos skipper nicknamed “Captain Socceroo”.

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Warren played for a local club and personally helped the local women’s team grow into a football powerhouse that became the backbone of Australia’s first international women’s team in the 1970s, long before they were called the Matildas.

The crowd at the live site wasn’t huge. Wednesday night had been Sydney’s coldest night of the year and Thursday night wasn’t much warmer. But the cheers when Steph Catley scored instantly warmed everyone up. Doubtless it was the same across Australia.

For all the elation surrounding their plucky win, the Matildas still have plenty to prove in this tournament.

It’s worth remembering that they’ve never progressed beyond the World Cup quarter finals. If that’s to change, they’ll need to find an avenue to goal that doesn’t involve Sam Kerr, even after she recovers from her calf strain.

They’ll also want to work on their defence as they were caught napping on Ireland’s counterattack a few times.

But it was a great start. The Matildas long ago defeated the naysayers who said our women’s national team could never match the Socceroos for popularity.

Now to beat the world on the football pitch.

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