The streets won’t forget these Matildas. They’ve changed Australia, in both the way we see ourselves and the way the world sees us. They’ve inspired hundreds, thousands, millions, and in as many different ways. They’ve captured hearts and minds and created memories and moments that will last a lifetime, maybe longer.
You could mount an argument that these things matter more than trophies – and in a way, if you think really hard about it, you might be a little bit right. But you also know that’s not how this works, and that’s exactly why this hurts so much.
The end of an era has arrived: tomorrow, probably, begins the slow break-up of this golden generation, of perhaps the greatest collection of individual footballers, male or female, that this country has ever assembled.
We’re just going to have to remember them as one of the best teams never to win something.
This Women’s Asian Cup was supposed to fix that wrinkle in the universe. That was almost the whole point of having it here. It was wrong that Kerr, Foord, Catley et al did not have a legacy-defining piece of silverware to call their own. They wanted it badly, and we wanted it for them just as much, so we organised for this to happen and we got emotionally invested, desperately hoping that it would.
But the 16-year drought goes on … and on. And on. It might go on for a long time. That’s not to dismiss their chances in the future, or to say it’s impossible that they could win next year’s World Cup in Brazil because it’s possible, technically.
That’s just staring reality in its ugly face.
Some players go their whole careers without playing an international tournament on home soil. This lot, the best we’ve ever had, got to do it twice in the space of three years – and they gave everything they had, but it wasn’t quite enough.
If not these players, and if not now, when will it be? Can it even be?
The reason this opportunity was so precious is because we know the window is closing. Australia’s first-mover advantage in the women’s game is all but gone; traditional football countries have clocked on and have the capacity to get better, quicker. That is happening.
With every World Cup cycle, the bullishness with which we can talk about our chances diminishes. Unless something changes at home, the Matildas will backslide in the global pecking order to somewhere near where the Socceroos sit in the men’s game. That’s our natural position.
An added complication is that the Matildas will now have to go through a period of overdue regeneration. Of the squads that took part in the 2014 Asian Cup final between these two nations, eight players from Australia were still involved 12 years later. For Japan? Zero. They’ve turned over their entire national team since then and improved out of sight; to win any future Asian Cup, we’ll probably have to beat the Nadeshiko, and that’s hard to fathom right now.
Meanwhile, there is no guarantee that if the Matildas turn over their entire team, that the next iteration will be better than before. The consensus in the game seems to be that, while there is a rich pipeline of male talent coming through that could propel the Socceroos to a new level in the next decade, it’s not the same for the women. Sam Kerr-level players don’t just grow on trees, and if one happened to emerge today, she’d probably end up playing AFLW anyway.
So, how to close the gap?
It’s perhaps instructive that on the morning of the final, Football Australia sent out a press release which essentially begged for government support. And it’s not like they haven’t asked nicely: after federal sports minister Anika Wells suggested that football’s problem was a lack of a “unified purpose”, the game’s various administrative bodies finally got organised and put forward a collective pitch for funding. But they haven’t had the response they wanted.
The ask was $3 billion over 10 years, which was pretty ambitious – but the vast majority of that money was for grassroots facilities, which are in a parlous state. More than half of that amount was to help address the galling lack of female-friendly change rooms across the country. Participation for women and girls surged after the 2023 Women’s World Cup, and isn’t slowing down. But how on earth can the Matildas hope to keep their spot in the global pecking order when this “critical issue”, as new FA chief executive Martin Kugeler described it, is unresolved?
On a similar note, at what point do the bean-counters recognise the role of the A-League clubs as a development factory? Every single Matildas player at the Asian Cup began their journey in our domestic competition, but the high-performance funding that essentially fuels what is now Australia’s favourite national team comes from the pockets of the club owners. Is that how it should be? Is there not a better way? If we want them to remain our favourites, and if we want them to continue to be competitive at the highest level, that has to change.
And that goes, too, for the many Australians who have jumped on the Matildas bandwagon, some of whom are experiencing true football heartbreak for the first time.
Welcome. It sucks, doesn’t it?
But there is an entire ecosystem involved here that you need to become invested in, too, if you want to taste a flavour that isn’t bittersweet, and it begins at your doorstep. Buy a ticket to an A-League game and support the players who you’ll one day cheer on in green and gold. Be the change you want to see in the world. Maybe then, one day, we can experience a different feeling.
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