The ‘really dangerous’ metric raising unfounded concerns about Matildas crowds

Source : ABC NEWS

When a crowd of 35,170 was announced for the Matildas’ semifinal against China at Perth Stadium, it was almost a surprise.

So accustomed have we become to the Matildas drawing record and sell-out crowds that anything less suddenly comes as a shock.

Never mind that it was Tuesday. Never mind it was the Asian Cup, not the World Cup. Never mind that it started at 6pm. Never mind that number is higher than the average crowd for basically every NRL team for the past 30 years.

And, due to the simple nature of numbers and stadium capacities, records simply can’t be broken every game into perpetuity.

Talk of “Matildas Fever” waning on the eve of the Asian Cup was not completely unfounded, but also not entirely fair as evidenced by the fact another record is set to fall with more than 60,000 tickets already sold for Saturday’s final against Japan at Stadium Australia.

Football is constantly battling for its place in the crowded Australian sporting landscape.

The Socceroos fought the good fight after their shock run to the knockout stage at the 2006 men’s World Cup and their 2015 Asian Cup triumph, and the Matildas carried the extra weight of representing an entire gender as well as a sport.

World Cups are the pinnacle of truly global sports, so of course the peak of the crowds and interest came during that 2023 tournament on home soil.

The sustained captivation from that moment has been nothing short of remarkable, even if the team hasn’t sold out Stadium Australia for every friendly in the intervening three years.

“What I’m really conscious of is if the Matildas are constantly measured by the success of only having full stadiums, it’s really dangerous,” said Sarah Walsh, former Matilda and 2026 Women’s Asian Cup local organising committee chief operating officer.

“That’s not applied to men’s sport; it never is and it never has been. I don’t want the Matildas to be the exception and not the rule.”

For comparison, the biggest crowd at the Rugby League World Cup in 2017 was 40,033 for the final at the 52,000-capacity Lang Park, which was one of only two crowds over 25,000 for the tournament.

And it wasn’t that long ago a 35,000-strong crowd was a more realistic tally for the entirety of the Women’s Asian Cup, rather than a single game.

The beginning of a movement

Over two weeks in July 2006, Australia hosted the 15th edition of the Women’s Asian Cup.

After years dominating competition in Oceania, the Matildas (including Walsh) were competing at their first tournament as full members of the Asian Football Confederation.

Collette McCallum was a fresh face in the 2006 squad and said it was the beginning of Australia’s women’s football team becoming the sporting and cultural powerhouse they have become.

“If we stayed in Oceania I don’t think as a team we would have progressed as what we’ve done in Asia,” she said.

“Playing against Japan, South Korea, North Korea and China, they were always strong at international level. For us, moving there and constantly playing against these teams, it was very hard but at the same time I think that’s how we built and got better, whereas if we stayed in Oceania it might’ve been a different story.”

Entering as the world number 15 — coincidentally the same ranking they hold at the corresponding event 20 years later — but fourth in Asia behind North Korea (seventh), China (eighth) and Japan (13th).

Predictably, those four teams coasted into the semifinals (the first knockout stage) with a combined goal difference of 45-2.

In this month’s Asian Cup, the Matildas will have played six games across three cities at four stadiums with a combined capacity around 190,000.

The Matildas’ official crowds at this tournament have already broken records and stand at 178,692, with another record of 60,000-plus locked in for Saturday night.

Twenty years ago, Australia’s six games across Hindmarsh Stadium and Marden Sports Complex totalled around 18,500 attendees, although most games’ crowd numbers are perfectly round numbers, so they’re clearly more vibes-based than anything.

On the afternoon of July 30, 2006, the Matildas lined up against China in the final in front of 5,168 fans at Hindmarsh Stadium (the official AFC match summary says exactly 5,000).

“I really felt like it was rent-a-crowd at that moment,” goalkeeper Melissa Barbieri said.

“I felt like we had a lot of people there supporting the game: ‘There’s something happening in our backyard, let’s go watch.’

“But this time it’s almost like: ‘I need to go to watch, I need to support these women, I know these women, I know what they have to go through, I know who they play for.’ I feel like that’s the difference.

“We as Matildas haven’t really changed over the years, [but] everybody’s access to us has grown and the more you get to know us the more proud you’ll be, and that’s the connection we have as Matildas to our fans that probably no other sport can attain.”

While Sam Kerr and her teammates have repeatedly incited their record-breaking crowds to give them a boost during recent matches, midfielder McCallum said there was a freedom to playing the 2006 tournament that would be hard to replicate in front of 60,000 home fans.

“When you’re in the game and whistles [blows] you don’t think about the crowd, you’re kind of in the moment and just playing, but a crowd can be massive as well,” she said.

“It was nice because you just got your head down and played, but when you have a bit of a crowd there the nerves do kick in a bit more, you feel there is a bit more pressure as a player.

“You kind of were there playing for the love of it.

“It is a difference when you do have 400 in attendance, it kind of feels like a training match and you’re just there to play; whereas if you do get a crowd there is a bit more pressure and demands, especially here in Australia, that you’ve got to win.”

Over two hours of gut-busting pain

Against the then-seven-time champions, goalkeeper Barbieri was typically influential in the early stages before Caitlin Muñoz launched an audacious left-footed strike from 30 metres out.

Wenxia Han could only parry onto the woodwork and in as the half-hour mark approached.

Jo Peters headed in a corner shortly after and, in the space of five minutes, the Matildas were within reach of their maiden major trophy.

All they needed to do was hold on to that 2-0 half-time lead, which was exactly what they’d just done against Japan in the semifinal.

But, just as the Matildas had done in the first half, China flipped the game again in a five-minute stretch in the second, when Duan Han and Xiaoxu Ma went back to back and levelled the match at 2-2.

For the next hour, across regulation and extra time, it remained a stalemate.

China brought on substitute goalkeeper Yanru Zhang for a penalty shootout. It proved a masterstroke by coach Liangxing Ma and a disaster for McCallum.

“I just remember [coach] Tom Sermanni coming to me and going ‘look, I want you to take a penalty’, and I just knew at that time my legs were so dead,” she said.

“I was tired and … I didn’t have the confidence there, [but I said to myself] ‘right, he wants me to take this, I’ve got to take it’.

“Walking up, this was a big girl, the ‘keeper was humungous. And walking to the penalty, I just remember changing my mind, and once I’d changed my mind, that was it.”

Zhang saved the first pen from McCallum and then the third from Peters as China slotted all four of their chances from the spot to claim their eighth Women’s Asian Cup crown, sparking jubilant celebrations under dim lights at Hindmarsh Stadium.

Despite admitting it “kinda sucked” personally and, despite being one of Australia’s best players of the era, she’s often asked about missing that spot kick, McCallum still sees that tournament as the start of a new era for women’s football in Australia.

Kerr and the core just around the corner

By reaching the final, the Matildas had qualified for the 2007 World Cup through Asia at first time of asking.

“Everyone was excited about that, so [the final] was just another game,” she said.

“If we won that, even better, but it was just a massive opportunity now we’re going through Asia and it was definitely going to change the way the Matildas were going to go in the future.”

Four years later, the Matildas still couldn’t beat China in their group game, but got the ultimate revenge when Kyah Simon slotted the game-winning penalty in a final shootout against North Korea to win the team’s only piece of major silverware.

That 2010 squad included Sam Kerr, Emily van Egmond, Clare Polkinghorne, Simon, Tameka Yallop (then Butt), Elise Kellond-Knight and Lydia WIlliams, who would form the core of the Matildas for the next decade.

A year later, Caitlin Foord joined the party for the World Cup in Germany, where a squad featuring seven players who were also in the 2023 World Cup team got some experience playing in front of tens of thousands of fans.

McCallum, who settled in Western Australia after emigrating from Scotland when she was a child, had known Perth native Kerr since she was 13 years old and played with her on the Glory.

Immediately she could see the talent of Kerr and her ilk.

“All those young ones … there was about five or six of them coming through together and you thought ‘if these girls stick together and keep playing then they’re the group that are going to change the Matildas’. And they were,” McCallum said.

“Sammy, Caitlin, Teigen Allen, Emily van Egmond, Macca [Mackenzie Arnold], you could just see there was something special about them playing together but also individually.

“The fact they’ve carried on … it’s been really exciting to see the massive shift.”

Asian finals in 2014 and 2018 ended in agonising 1-0 defeats to Japan, before painful exits at the 2019 World Cup and the 2016 and 2021 Olympics, as well as a shock quarterfinal loss in the 2022 Asian Cup as the quest continues for another major trophy.

On Saturday they return to the decider against old foes Japan, coming off an ominous 4-1 win over South Korea, with whom Australia drew 3-3 in the group stage.

McCallum still isn’t sure how her team beat the favoured Japanese 1-0 in the semifinal of the 2010 tournament, but her advice for this year’s Matildas is simple.

“I just remember grafting as much as we could,” she said.

“It’s tournament football so you want to play pretty football but, at the same time, if you want to win this tournament you’ve got to just mentally stick together, work hard and get the result.”