Women’s World Cup: Bastille Day battle cry is … Allez Les Lorikeets!

The World Cup show unofficially hits the road in Melbourne on Friday night when the Matildas play France in a Bastille Day match at Marvel Stadium.

Ellie Carpenter trains ahead of the Matildas’ World Cup warm-up match against France at Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium. Picture: Getty Images

The Matildas. Great nickname. Suits them. Makes you want to sing as you watch and wait until your billy boils. It’s waltzed into Australia’s sporting vernacular and you cannot imagine them being called anything else – but they nearly were. And it could have been a shocker.

The World Cup show unofficially hits the road in Melbourne on Friday night when the Matildas play France in a Bastille Day match at Marvel Stadium.

All tickets are sold. A crowd in excess of 50,000 will lift the roof off the joint – and it will rattle along like La Marseillaise. Marchons! Marchons!

The game is billed as a “send-off” for the Matildas but that doesn't make a lot of sense. Where are they going?

They’re not departing for a World Cup. They’re co-hosting it. Send-offs are traditionally reserved for Australian sides heading overseas. They’re ghosts of the past, really. Bradman’s Invincibles, for example, had a send-off in Perth in 1948 before jumping on a boat and disappearing to the UK for five months. That was a proper send-off. A couple of weeks after the Matildas are farewelled in Melbourne, they’ll be playing again. In Melbourne.

No matter. We get it. “We are absolutely delighted but not surprised to see this send-off match sell out,” Football Australia CEO James Johnson said.

“The Matildas are a team that resonates with all Australians as one of the most popular national teams in the country … our Matildas are box office.”

Send-off, blast-off, kick-off. What’s in a name? It’s a house-warming. A welcoming party. The Matildas haven’t played in Australia since February. The World Cup doesn’t start until next week. But really, the travelling roadshow starts now. A full house in Melbourne will provide a taste of the cacophonous support to come. It’s a dress rehearsal for players and public.

You may not know soccer from sudoku but you’ve heard of the Matildas. The name on everyone’s lips. It suits them. A perfect sobriquet. Who to thank for it? The football diehards watching SBS in 1995.

Australia had just qualified for its first Women’s World Cup. The Australian Women‘s Soccer Association and SBS ran a viewer poll to find a moniker before the tournament in Sweden. Creative whims from the audience weren’t encouraged. Five options were presented … and the winner was the best of a bad bunch.

The alternatives? Go the Soccertoos! Pass. Go the Blue Flyers! But they’re wearing green and gold. Go the Waratahs. Isn’t that NSW? C’arn the Lorikeets! We’d have sounded like a bunch of ­galahs. The Matildas stuck as the nickname, and it’s become music to the ears.

The World Cup’s opening double-header on Thursday is New Zealand versus Norway at Auckland’s Eden Park followed by the Blue Flyers – sorry, the Matildas – against Ireland at Sydney’s Stadium Australia. Here’s what the Australians want from the clash with the French. No injuries.

If captain Sam Kerr goes down hurt, there will be a national day of mourning. You don’t want anyone to be hobbling off in send-offs.

The Matildas will go hard, but not too hard. The result is important, but not too important. It will be intense, but not quite as intense as the Storming of the Bastille.

Eye-opening will be a hint of the atmosphere to come. If folks pack Marvel Stadium to the rafters, which they will, and if the atmosphere blows the rook off the joint, which it will, and if it’s a jolly good time for all, we know without doubt the hype is real.

Kerr’s team will be blowing away the cobwebs. Fans will be clearing their throats. That’ll be the name of this game.