EVERY AUSTRALIAN KNOWS WHO SAM KERR IS. Even people who, before the 2023 Women’s World Cup, had never watched a football match in their life, now know who Sam Kerr is. Something happened this year; something changed. The Sydney Opera House was illuminated in green and gold. Passengers on incoming international flights were informed about the temperature on the ground—then given the latest news on the Matildas as a chaser. “GO MATILDAS” replaced standard messages on train-station screens. It was a change that Kerr, captain of the Matildas, felt while she was out there on the pitch; she could hear it in the roar of the crowd.

“The girls and I were laughing because you could tell that the longer the World Cup went on, the more the Australian public actually understood the rules of football rather than just cheering for the team because they love us,” she says, grinning. “We would do a bad pass and they’d get angry at us, or when it was offside, they’d be screaming—it was a nice experience to see the country change like that during a month of football.”

The allegiance of the home crowd was most keenly felt in Brisbane on the night of August 12 when Australia and France played their quarter-final, which came down to an epic penalty shootout. Each time a French player approached the ball, they were roundly booed. When it was the Matildas’ turn, the reverent silence in the stadium was electric. The Matildas won the shootout, 7-6, and the crowd erupted: the home side had qualified for a World Cup semi-final. The cheers could be heard in the streets, in the house next door, on the bus. Millions watched around the world.

Read more at Esquire Australia.