The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup has been and gone. It was a particularly special year with Australia and New Zealand hosting the tournament and our very own Aussie team, the Matildas, making history in fourth place. It was an exciting month, that’s for sure, so it’s normal to feel a little lost without any Women’s World Cup matches to look forward to. If that’s you, we’ve pulled together a guide on some things you can do to fill the void of the WWC.
What to do now that the Women’s World Cup is done
Get invested in the A-League
The A-League Women (formerly known as the W League) is the top division women’s soccer league in Australia and another place you can catch a lot of the Matildas players, as well as a crop of up-and-coming Aussie sports stars.
Teams in the competition include Adelaide United, Canberra United, Melbourne City, Melbourne Victory, Newcastle Jets, Perth Glory, Wellington Phoenix, Brisbane Roar, Sydney FC and Western Sydney Wanderers.
In the 2023-24 season, the ALW will begin with a standalone round on October 14, a week prior to the Men’s A-League (starting October 20). The season will run until May 2024.
The Liberty Pass allows those under 16 free entry to ALW for the season, and you can sign up for your local club here.
If you can’t make it to games in person, they will also be streamed live and free on 10Play.
Check out the Women’s Super League
If you want to follow the careers of your favourite players like Sam Kerr, Caitlin Foord, Steph Catley, Mary Fowler and Mackenzie Arnold when they’re not playing for the Matildas, you’ll find many of them playing with English teams in the Women’s Super League.
The season begins in October and will be streamed on Optus Sport in Australia.
Keep an eye on the 2024 Olympics
The next big opportunity for The Matildas to score gold is at the 2024 Olympics in Paris. The team qualified for the last games in Tokyo and came close to walking away with a Bronze medal (they landed fourth place), so Australia is a serious contender for the 2024 event.
Between October 23 and November 1, Australia will host a round-robin tournament for the Olympic Qualifiers featuring the Matildas, Chinese Taipei, Philippines and IR Iran. The details of Australia’s games in the Qualifiers Round 2 are as follows:
- Australia vs IR Iran – October 26
- Australia vs Philippines – October 29
- Australia vs Chinese Taipei – November 1
These games are all slated to be played in WA at HBF Park. Tickets are available here.
Relive the Women’s World Cup in FIFA 23
If you wish that the Australia v England game had gone differently, you can live out your soccer dreams in FIFA 23. EA’s sports simulator lets you pit your favourite teams against each other and take them up the ladder.
You can pick from your top players, including many from the Matildas team, and our very own legend Sam Kerr actually features on the cover of FIFA 23.
Follow the AFLW
Women’s sport is truly taking over, and another league that’s on the rise is the AFLW. Featuring 18 different clubs, our women’s homegrown football league will run its next season from September 1 until December 3.
You can see the match 2023 schedule and purchase tickets here.
Watch Matildas: The World at Our Feet
Matildas’ fever may have overtaken the country in the past few weeks, but there are a few who seemed to predict we’d all be obsessed. One of those is Disney+, who commissioned the Aussie original docuseries Matildas: The World at Our Feet last year and follows the Aussie team behind the scenes on their journey to the 2023 World Cup. We now know how that story ends, but if you want to revisit all the hurdles the Matildas had to face to arrive at the World Cup this year, you can in this series.
If you’re craving other soccer-adjacent TV shows, we can also recommend Ted Lasso and Welcome to Wrexham.
Look forward to the next Women’s World Cup
If nothing else, there’s always the next FIFA Women’s World Cup to look forward to.
The next tournament will be in 2027, with host cities to be announced in May 2024.
Four bids have been put forward from The Royal Belgian, the Royal Netherlands and the German Football Associations (as a joint expression of interest); the Brazilian Football Association; the South African Football Association; and the U.S. Soccer Federation and Mexican Football Association (joint EOI).
You can also scratch your football itch with other major competitions like the Euros (men’s comp is in 2024 and women’s in 2025), the Copa America (men’s comp is in 2024, and women’s is in 2025, and the Men’s World Cup in 2026.
Play the sport!
If watching the world game has you desperate for more football in your life, you could always give it a shot yourself. Social games with programs like Just Play are a good way to get involved with no pressure.
And if you’re not interested in kicking a ball around, you can always help young girls in your life to get involved with the game, too. EA Sports and the Police Citizens Youth Clubs NSW (PCYC) recently opened the Sam Kerr x EA SPORTS FC Futures Football Pitch; a community football pitch in Sydney designed to support girls’ and womens’ football over the next 12 months, but there are loads of local clubs waiting for new members, so take a look around.
We still have four years to wait until the next Women’s World Cup, but until then, hopefully, one of the suggestions above gets you through those post-Women’s World Cup blues.
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