Among the many outfits clambering onto the World Cup bandwagon is a mattress-maker promoting the importance of quality sleep to good health generally, and to improved athletic performance.
Ha! Who with an interest in the Matildas and the World Cup (and, for that matter, the Ashes) has been able to sleep this past week? Not the players. Not their families. Not the fans. Certainly not soccer authorities dwelling on a free kick for their code in this country and the nightmare possibility of scuffing it.
Sleep? As in voluntarily forgo consciousness? Now?
Mary Fowler celebrates her second-half goal.Credit: Eddie Jim
Not before the tournament: too much excitement. Not during it: what if you miss something? Not before this match: too much dread.
Talk about Nessun Dorma. Sing about it even, the way Pavarotti did.
Not now that this prospective bum-clencher is done: too much adrenaline still surging through the national veins, too much euphoria, too much relief. Try to put all those to bed anytime soon.
This gift of a home World Cup is meeting all its KPIs. Stadiums are at, or near, capacity. TV ratings are not far short of state-of-origin levels. Coverage is as near to saturation as could be expected in this multi-code country while the other football codes are nearing their peak seasons and an Ashes series is playing out.
But in the end, only one criterion counted and will count. It was, and is, down to the Matildas and particularly Sam Kerr. It wasn’t that all the eggs were in one basket, but that there is only one basket, and only one globally recognised egg (with apologies to all the other very good eggs in the team). She, and they, had to make this work.
But wishing and hoping isn’t having; any number of Australian teams down the years could tell you that. Perhaps the most memorable occasion for women’s sport in this country this century was the 2019 World Cup cricket final and Australia’s triumph and the 85,000 crowd at the MCG (over there, looming in dark outline, just across the train tracks).
Lost in the mists now is that the Australians had only just scraped through a rain-blighted semi-final in Sydney three days previously. Without them, the final would have been a very different event. Didn’t a few hearts beat faster then? Aren’t they now?
This dynamic gave both this match and the prelude its shape. The Matildas’ halting progress in the tournament and a litter of fallen powers around was sitting in the back of their minds as a reminder of the caprice of their sport.
The Matildas celebrate their fourth goal during the FIFA Women’s World Cup Group B match between Australia and Canada.Credit: Eddie Jim
After an arrhythmic performance against Ireland, and the shock loss to Nigeria, the weight of the Matildas’ mission and the tension inherent in it was there for all to see. Kerr was all the more conspicuous for her absence; she was seen everywhere except the pitch. Seven weren’t coy about it; they billed this night as “Australia’s Kerr-ucial Knockout Match”.
The Matildas and their minders seemed to resent the focus on what had gone wrong, or worse, what still might. They should have welcomed it, pressure notwithstanding, as the backhand compliment it is.
The Matildas, along with the cricket team, had brought gravitas to women’s sport. With that comes expectation and responsibility, and closer attention. Only kids sports are treated with kid gloves. Besides, they have it easy compared with the protagonist and choir in Nessun Dorma: they stood to die if they didn’t win.
A goal changed everything, which is the general idea. Canada made the crisper beginning, but once Hayley Raso had displayed the poise to steady herself in the ninth minute before tucking away the opener – and after VAR had delayed her gratification – the Matildas relaxed and grew into their vocation. It wasn’t about what keeps them awake at night, but what they dream about day and night: playing football.
Raso was a goalkeeper’s handspan away from a second and then scored another anyway, from a scramble in the box. Meantime, Mary Fowler was denied when VAR judged Ellie Carpenter to be offside by the width of a bootlace. But the Matildas at last could relish their backyard World Cup. They couldn’t do anything about the white noise off the field, but they could make their own, and did, fortified by an exuberant crowd.
Immediately after half-time, Caitlin Foord jinked her way into the box and Fowler bundled it home to make three and Fowler was the thickness of an upright away from a fourth. Australia’s self-possession grew with their lead. Goalkeeper Mackenzie Arnold denied Canada their best chance; you could argue she was not to be denied. Steph Catley’s late penalty tied the bow.
And still Kerr was not seen, but now that’s a blessing to count instead of a handicap to surmount. Her rehab could progress apace for six more days. Australia didn’t need her, but they will.
As the tide of emotions ebbs, how to put this night to bed?
Nessun dorma, yes. Pavarotti turned it into something of a sporting anthem. We won’t try to do his voice in these pages, but at the climax of the crescendo, he booms: “Vincero!” “I shall win.” Well, the Matildas did, and now they know they can again, and so do their compatriots. And now it is really, formally, actually do-or-die.
Meantime, we’ll settle for the words from actor Jack Thompson a few decibels down from Pavarotti in a 1980s ad that remains more famous than the product it was promoting: It’s the punchline to a joke the audience does not hear, and prompts hearty chuckles all round: “And then we can all get some sleep.”
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