It was a game that warped the senses.
The thunderous, brain-rattling sound of nearly 50,000 fans at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane was felt as much in the diaphragm as it was in the parts of the eardrums that even cotton swabs aren’t meant to reach. Eyes bore witness to each narrowly missed shot and gravity defying save, but they also left behind a taste that resembled blood and made palms of hands slick with nervous sweat.
So intense was the battle between Australia and France during this World Cup quarter-final that it bent time, too. The match was a storybook filled with chapters of non-stop, end-to-end action that stretched and compressed, twisted and turned.
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And the crowd wasn’t merely composed of the usual suspects.
Of course, there were endless gaggles of young Australians in bright yellow shirts trimmed in forest green, their temporary tattoos wrinkled by permanent smiles. Of course, those fanciful admirers brought their families, but the thumping stadium was also filled with bros in muscle shirts of the same colors jostling through the concession lines balancing beers and line-up predictions, and the desperate fan who received their ticket from a friend who’d already seen the Matildas play against Nigeria but wanted to spread the indescribable joy of seeing them in person.
The game felt like being in the past, the present, and the future of women’s football — and the Women’s World Cup — all at once.
“We can’t drive past a person on the bus without them waving and going crazy and saying good luck,” Australian captain Steph Catley said. “It’s something that, as a female footballer, I’ve never witnessed. It’s changed forever, it’s changed for the better, and I think it’s pretty amazing that now
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