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SYDNEY, Australia — Nothing can compete with the Matildas.
Meetings have been canceled. Other sporting events, rescheduled. Pubs are stocking up and viewing centers across the capital are setting up massive screens, preparing for the Matildas-obsessed masses.
When the Australian women’s national team, the Matildas as they’re nicknamed here, takes to the pitch Wednesday night (6 a.m. Wednesday ET) for their first-ever World Cup semifinal against England, the country will come to a screeching halt in front of its TVs. (Unless, of course, you’re one of the lucky 80,000 fans packed into Stadium Australia in Sydney, one of the nine cities in Australia and New Zealand where the 2023 matches are being played.)
Hours before the match, fans dressed in the team’s green and gold were already gathering at the stadium as well as Tumbalong Park, where it will be shown free on giant screens.
“It is putting these incredible women on center stage for them to, you know, play the best game of their lives,” Rayali Banerjee said outside the stadium before the match on Wednesday.
Advancing out of the FIFA Women’s World Cup group stage sent a jolt through the sports-centric Australian psyche. And when the team fought past France in the longest penalty shootout in World Cup history, men’s or women’s, the entire country dared to dream.
“No national team has fused hopes and dreams so magically as the Matildas,” the front page of The Sydney Morning Herald proclaimed on Wednesday ahead of the match against England.
Another Australian broadsheet, The Daily Telegraph, has changed its masthead to the “Tillygraph” as a nod to the team and included a shiny “Go Matildas” poster in every edition earlier this week.
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