After Sarina Wiegman finished her press conference following the victory over Colombia on Saturday, England’s Dutch coach was so struck by the number of questions about England’s historic sporting rivalry with Australia that she immediately started asking staff members about the extent of it. She quickly realised she had underestimated just how much this meant.
Those at the England camp duly filled her in, although, as one staff member laughed: “It’s not like we showed her old clips of the Ashes.” They maybe didn’t need to.
A trip to the shop beside England’s otherwise tranquil Terrigal base would have shown how intense it’s all getting. The front page of The West Australian – the newspaper that covers Australian player Sam Kerr’s home city of Perth – read: “And you thought the Ashes was big!”
It is everywhere in the build-up to the game, where the widespread sentiment articulated by the Sydney Morning Herald is: “Now for the Poms.”
All of this really shows just how much this Women’s World Cup has captured Australia, with Wednesday’s semi-final set to break all kinds of audience records. With even supporters who previously dismissed “soccer” now looking forward to this match and trying to get tickets, this feels like the game this tournament has been waiting for, a deserved crescendo, an event with real cut-through.
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And that applies to England as much as Australia.
In terms of pure narrative drama, it has so far almost been the ideal World Cup. The tournament has offered shocks, unpredictability, memorable moments, storylines and now a high-class semi-final line-up, with the real elite separated from those extending themselves. One of those games will involve a rivalry that is among the oldest and most intense in sport, an alluring element that transcends whatever the event is.
Plus, that event is taking place around midday on Wednesday in the United Kingdom, which is almost perfect for passing viewers during the school holidays. Even if England and Australia have not met enough for there to be a true football rivalry (although there is already talk from within the camps that that is changing) the point is about something much bigger than any sport now being transposed onto a new sport.
This is going to be huge, even leaving aside what is at stake. And what’s at stake is that England are a mere match away from the greatest stage in football.
So, however, are Australia. The words “Til it’s done”, featuring an abbreviation of the word “Matildas” in classic Aussie style, are now everywhere on social media. Such has been the nationwide surge of enthusiasm that this game could be put on at any time and the country would still stop.
“We can see there are a lot of people excited about this game,” Australia manager Tony Gustavsson said, before gesturing to the packed press conference, and saying: “Just look at this room here!”
All of this is of course noise the players themselves have sought to turn down, and need to shut out. There have been the usual lines about how it’s “just another game”. Even Wiegman went from asking questions to insisting: “We don’t feel the rivalry that much.” The noise is sort of the point, though.
And you can’t dismiss all of this as irrelevant, because it will charge the atmosphere around Sydney’s Stadium Australia, taking this way above the electricity of a home semi-final.
This is where there’s a dynamic that only further fires this game, that adds to the tension. There may not be too much difference between the sides, but it doesn’t feel like they are quite going in on level terms. Australia are at home; and the campaigns of the two sides have been too different.
With England, it has almost flipped though. After five successive games conditioned by the suspense of an embarrassing early exit, they are now the team that might undo something bigger, that might “spoil the party”. England have also achieved the minimum target of getting to the semi-finals. That might have been a battle, but it could now release them to go for the maximum. There was a sense of a team coming together in some of their best spells of football against Colombia. Georgia Stanway was knitting everything together, taking more responsibility.
Australia have come together in a completely different way. Whereas England have ground their way through, gradually solving problem after problem, Gustavsson’s side have been on the rollercoaster that fits the way this World Cup has emotionally seized the country.
If the manner of that penalty shoot-out win involved a lot of nerves and doubt, it also served to fortify belief.
“I remember coming into the changing rooms after the France game and Sam [Kerr] came in and said ‘I think this is the time now when we can really believe we can go all the way’,” Australia’s Mackenzie Arnold said of her celebrated teammate on the eve of the England game.
It is that sense of resolve that Wiegman’s side have repeatedly enjoyed, and developed with. Those two different paths to the semi-final also bring multiple perspectives on the coming game.
One view of England is that they have fought their way through problem after problem, to the point they can now get through anything.
Another view is that letting games become such battles is an indication you might run into real trouble when you face a truly elite side.
But are Australia playing like that? The quarter-final against France threw up other concerns.
That is the nature of a tournament, mind. They are usually about game-management and forcing your way through. Wiegman has developed that quality in England, especially through a cast-iron defence so well marshalled by Millie Bright.
Should Kerr start, as many of the murmurs around the Australia camp are increasingly indicating, she may find the central area she most enjoys is completely covered. On the other side, it will be the first time England’s backline faces a forward who uses space and the ball in the unique way Kerr does.
That is of course if she is even fit enough. “Australia is not just Sam Kerr,” Wiegman said. “Yes we have a plan but she could start or be on the bench.” Those questions persist, but so does this World Cup’s wait for its great star’s first big moment.
Alessia Russo has finally had hers. England’s forwards might have found something like form at the right time.
It’s certainly the right game. Nobody would make the mistake of saying it’s the “real final” but it may well end up the World Cup’s biggest fixture.
It’s an old rivalry on a new stage, with new stakes. Neither of these sides has been to a World Cup final before. There can surely be no better game to get there.
It’s a game the tournament has waited for. And it’s the moment the teams have waited for.
