As the Matildas progress further than any Australian team ever has in a World Cup, so too has the nation’s sudden interest in football.
It’s not just the Matildas’ success on the field that’s driving the interest. They have been a great team for a while. They made the Olympic medal playoffs – but without an audience like this. The combination of finally receiving the press attention they are due with their games broadcast on free-to-air in a timeslot most locals don’t have to risk their jobs to watch has placed a powerful truth front-and-centre of Australian culture: yes, football really is the beautiful game.
For those Australians whose regionality obliged them into loyalty to AFL or rugby league, there are two lessons on offer. The first is that football is beloved on all inhabited continents – and by those from the poorest, shoeless kid to billionaire royalty – because it’s tense, dramatic, exciting, inspirational, strategic and triangulates skill, luck and opportunity into game narratives of thrilling unpredictability. The second lesson is that sport is not a monogamous relationship. You are allowed to love more than one thing at a time.
And yet, there are apparently people out there begrudging the recently arrived army of fresh fans to the sport. Heresy! To paraphrase St Craig of Foster (praise be upon his name) when asked about this: it doesn’t matter how you get to church, what matters is finding salvation.
Women and girls who can finally see themselves in a prime-time, world-class game – alas – might feel intimidated from fandom by the prospect of hazing rituals from a weird sect of (mostly) men who either want to gatekeep football or diminish anything, at all, that women like or do. For this reason, I’ve prepared this entirely subjective “latecomer football fan guide to Matilding your life”.
“Explain the offside rule” is the demand made by every half-drunk human eel should anyone dare to express “I love this game” and have boobs at the same time. Memorise in advance “an attacking player can’t be past the last defender when the ball is passed in the defender’s half” for the occasion. For extra points, study this animated guide and re-enact it with beer bottles and a packet of sugar on a pub table until said eel slinks off to nurse his bruised masculinity in another lukewarm pint. Make sure to holler “Offside!” as if you have won bingo whenever you see it directly.
Should you be deluged with sexism so raw as the masculinist mathematics calculating Sam Kerr’s 54 international goals as somehow less than Tim Cahill’s 50, Jamila Rizvi has compiled a helpful thread of embarrassing opinions you and your friends can laugh at in public. Still being told that the women’s game isn’t up to the standard of the men’s? Remind them that the Australia-France quarter-final penalty shootout was the longest in World Cup history and if you’re still denounced as an arriviste by someone claiming you never showed interest in the sport until the women’s game was on telly, affect a flat expression, shrug and say “Yeah, I always loved football but I was waiting for the men’s game to catch up”.
In the case that your praise of literally anyone on the team is met with an instant game of “my favourite player’s harder than your favourite player”, fear not. It’s usually played by an angry dinosaur showing you violent YouTube videos of Roy Keane – the correct response is “So, sort of like an Irish Katrina Gorry?”. It doesn’t matter what they say next because, when you shoot back “But he’s never done that after giving birth, has he?”, you win.
To channel the Matilda within, I recommend you invest in kit. Not only does it make you more visible to the broader community of fans, but we live in a capitalist society and it’s not good intentions that are getting the Matildas exposure – it’s that they’re out-earning their male counterparts in merchandise sales. Hate capitalism? Can’t afford kit? Take inspiration from the Papua New Guinean village where Mary Fowler’s mum grew up and make your own.
Facilitate your kids’ interest in the sport. One of the most wonderful aspects of the World Cup is watching a generation of Australian children reaching for the ball. For every health, community and family-bonding reason, have a kick with them, find your local club, become a member, get involved. If you’re accused of being a “soccer mom”, retort: “I’m an active contributor to the community of this game, and you could be, too; get off your arse.”
But if you want to honour the ultimate Matilda power move, join a union. Heroes aren’t born, they’re forged – the team’s success now is not separate from their courage in pursuing collective industrial action for equal pay, their progress since they won that pay decision is no coincidence. And the next time some ragebaiting grifter denounces you as “woke”, normalise screaming “Woke … as a Matilda!” and engage the most powerful act of solidarity in your immediate vicinity.
As Australians gather in unprecedented numbers to watch our team play England in the semi, the latecomer’s most important lesson is perhaps remembering football’s not about who wins or loses. It’s about remembering FOOTBALL IS LIFE and screaming “CAAAAARN THE MATILDAAAAAS!” as loud as you can.
Van Badham is a Guardian Australia columnist
