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Opinion
Congratulations to Spain – winners of the best FIFA Women’s World Cup yet – and to everyone who turned out across Australia and New Zealand to make the tournament such a roaring success.
La Roja ran out deserved 1-0 winners over England in a tense finale at Stadium Australia – despite England goalkeeper Mary Earps saving a nervy Jennifer Hermoso penalty midway through the second half – with FIFA later claiming Earps did not leave her line early, even though the video footage clearly suggested she did.
Spain’s win was all the more remarkable given their chaotic build-up to the tournament, which at one point saw no less than 15 key players withdraw from national team contention in protest at the ongoing employment of coach Jorge Vilda.
In the end it was Vilda who led Spain to World Cup glory, and the tournament will be remembered for the packed stadiums – just under 2 million fans attended the 64 matches – and joyous atmospheres that greeted each and every game.
And while it takes a small army to pull off a tournament of this scale, plenty of credit must go to Football Australia’s chief executive James Johnson – who surely ranks as one of the shrewdest operators ever to be involved in the game in Australia.
It will be a huge blow to Football Australia if Johnson departs to take up a role with FIFA – as the rumour mill would have it – even if it would leave Australia with an inside man within the corridors of power in Zürich.
And having proved to FIFA that Australia can successfully host a World Cup, we should seriously consider submitting another joint bid with New Zealand to host the men’s edition in 2034.
Yet there are a few lessons that should be learned before doing so.
There was an eight-minute period between Sam Kerr’s stunning equaliser and Lauren Hemp’s goal for England in the semi-final at Stadium Australia that said much about Australia’s tournament.
It was a period when Matildas coach Tony Gustavsson needed to react by bringing on some fresh legs to try and build on the momentum of Kerr’s goal and stem the wave of England attacks.
Instead, Gustavsson did what he had done for the entire tournament – rely on a visibly fatigued starting 11 – and when Ellie Carpenter and Clare Hunt failed to deal with a route-one ball over the top, the contest was as good as over.
Does Gustavsson deserve to stay on as Matildas coach?
Has TG done enough to earn a contract extension? (Photo by Mark Metcalfe – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)
More to the point, would better squad rotation have yielded more than just Kerr’s solitary goal in the 300 minutes of football the Matildas played from the quarter-final onwards?
Merely asking the question doesn’t automatically make anyone an enemy of the game – even though this was a tournament where the sentiments of rusted-on football fans sometimes collided with those for whom action on the pitch was of secondary importance.
Nor should we instinctively trust politicians who were happy to bask in the limelight once it became clear the World Cup was a juggernaut that had captured the public’s attention.
It was the federal government who announced an unprecedented $200 million in funding towards women’s sport on the back of the Matildas’ record-breaking fourth-place finish.
That’s great news for women everywhere, but less impressive for the round-ball game when sports like Aussie rules and cricket invariably put their hands out for cash needed at every level of the football pyramid.
(Photo by Russell Freeman/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Fresh from serving as a Legacy ‘23 ambassador at the tournament, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk went so far as to reward a state in desperate need of investment with… a statue.
We can’t deny this was a World Cup that leaves us with so much to celebrate.
But like coaches who should know when to make substitutions, defenders who should know when to make fouls, and politicians who should have been switched-on enough to predict the popularity of a tournament that wasn’t even on TV’s anti-siphoning list, there are likewise lessons to learn.
Starting with us shedding some of our naïveté around how football actually works, and becoming a bona fide contender in the world game.