Matildas open a new front in Australia-England rivalry with World Cup semi-final
The clash with the Lionesses is a huge occasion. Layer it with 146 years of grudges, gloating and gripes, spanning all sports, and you go to blockbuster and beyond.
Bodyline. Jonny Bairstow’s stumping. W.G. Grace. The Gatting Ball. The sporting blood feud between Australia and England has centred on cricket since 1877. Here comes football.
Sam Kerr’s irrepressible Matildas play the old rival in a World Cup semi-final at Sydney’s Stadium Australia on Wednesday night. Crikey. You could get a couple of goose bumps just thinking about it. Blockbuster ain’t the word. The beautiful game is a beautiful thing when it pits sworn enemies against each other.
“I think I know how much this means to so many people,” the Matildas’ Swedish coach, Tony Gustavsson, said before his ebullient yet somewhat exhausted side departed Brisbane on Sunday.
An Australian football side is one win from a World Cup final. We’re sensational at soccer. Who would have thought? It used to be bit of a minority sport in our cricket-obsessed, other-footy-codes-loving land. The clash with the Lionesses is a huge occasion in its own right. Layer it with 146 years of history, grudges, gloating and gripes, spanning all sports, at the venue where England’s Jonny Wilkinson sank the Wallabies in the 2003 Rugby World Cup final with an extra-time field goal, and you go to blockbuster and beyond.
The Matildas are riding a wave so big it’s come from deep in the Southern Ocean and just thundered around the point at Bells Beach. They’re fresh off the high of beating France 7-6 in a wild penalty shootout on Saturday night that made you glad to be alive ... while probably taking a year of two off your existence. It was impossibly nerve-racking and entirely unpredictable. Gustavsson cried. A coat of goalpost varnish or a goalkeeper’s fingertip was the difference between winning and losing. Bambi was about to be shot, it seemed, but she survived. Kerr has pretty much seen and done it all in football but even she said, “Oh my god. I can’t believe it.”
You could write about the win over France until the cows come home. Cortnee Vine scored the matchwinner and yet goalkeeper Mackenzie Arnold was the real hero. She saved three penalties. Took one herself. Hit the post when Gustavsson thought it was “written in the stars” for her to seal the deal. She recovered to make another save, setting the scene for the fruit of the Vine. “Heart,” Gustavsson said repeatedly after the biggest game of the tournament. And yet an even bigger one is just days away.
The enormity of the stakes is mind-boggling. A place in a World Cup final. Lionesses captain Millie Bright, not to be confused with England’s 1882-83 Ashes captain Ivo Bligh, is a teammate of Kerr’s at Chelsea. “How can you not look forward to playing in this game?” Bright said. “We’ve spoken about it a lot. This is the biggest tournament in the women’s game to date, so what a game to be a part of. We’ve not come here just to compete. We’ve come here to get the job done. It’s amazing. Everyone’s buzzing.”
The Lionesses coach is Dutchwoman Sarina Wiegman. She’s clueless about the Australia-England rivalry. Wouldn’t know Warney from the water boy. “I’m going to have a word with my backroom staff to find out what it’s about,” Wiegman says. “I think in general the Australians and English get on really well. And I like the people here. But that doesn’t mean there’s no rivalry.”
Australia versus England. Football has never really been part of the rivalry because we were like the kid saying to a neighbour of a niche sport, “I don’t really play”. We do now. It’s a familiar opponent in an unfamiliar sport. Neither the Socceroos nor the Matildas have faced England at a World Cup.
“I love it,” Gustavsson said of another pressure-cooker match. “We’ve shown that we thrive under pressure. I’m so freaking proud about this team. These players are on a mission. The bravery they showed tonight? Unbelievable. The heart beating tonight in this team and in this country? Unbelievable.”
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