Cup week has arrived. Finally! Although, it doesn't seem that long ago that phones started buzzing at 2am on a cold morning back in June 2020.Women's sport in Australia changed at that moment.
It gave the Matildas a three-year runway to chase their World Cup goal. It gave fans something to get excited about. It gave a generation of female athletes a reason to dream.
The hype and excitement has snowballed over the past three years. There were 50,000 fans at a Matildas warm-up game last week and there'll be another 80,000 at Australia's opening game of the tournament against Ireland on Thursday.
With more than 1.3 million tickets already sold, the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand is set to be the biggest standalone women's sporting event in history.The players are urging fans to jump on board the journey.
They published a video on Monday morning to talk about their struggles of the past, the lack of respect they had to endure and the prize money that pales in comparison to what the men get.
"This is our legacy," they said.
We have launched The Women's Game - a daily newsletter for the duration of the World Cup.
Our team of journalists - Molly Appleton, Renee Valentine, Melanie Whelan, Caden Helmers, Jordan Warren and Melanie Dinjaski - will bring you the latest news, analysis and match recaps every day so you can draw a line between the pretenders and contenders.
Are the Matildas a legitimate chance to go all the way? Armed with Sam Kerr, anything is possible.
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