^{Picture originally from here, modified expertly by me}

Are you ready for some football? Want to be specific about which kind?  Because I have been at a LOT of football games these past few weeks, none of them of the “gridiron” variety. And virtually every minute of it was fucking awesome. As my fellow DFOers have cranked out excellent NFL team previews for 2023 (Bears preview remains pending with me) and NFL opening day is nigh, let us also pause to celebrate the continued awesomeness of Aussie rules football and the excitement that was the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.  Without further ado, let’s share some BOOTS ON THE GROUND: DOWN UNDAH! Note: all of the grounds from this post will be in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, where I recently spent more than two weeks going to sporting events and navigating those cities via their (fantastic) cocktail bars.

Let’s start with a high profile game with a suboptimal outcome, the Sydney Derby aka the Battle of the Bridge aka they’re still workshopping the name of the annual Sydney Swans vs Greater Western Sydney Giants match. First, an establishing shot:

If you haven’t been to Australia–and this was my first time–I highly recommend.  Sydney is freaking gorgeous, and one of its many many awesome attributes is the harbor, which is beautiful in both form and function. I guess that’s a roundabout way of me saying I took a ferry from Sydney to Sydney Olympic Park, part of Western Sydney and where the game was being played that evening.

Now, one of the knocks on GWS is that the stadium isn’t exactly convenient for a lot of folks.  That’s in part because the Giants play in Sydney Olympic Park, which is aptly named in that it was the focal point for the sports complexes during the Sydney Olympics but also isn’t aptly named because it’s not actually in the City of Sydney. Which means your options are drive west from Sydney (or in from whatever suburb) and park, take a rideshare, or take a train to a bus or a ferry to a bus or a train or ferry to a rather lengthy (like 45 minute) walk.  I had originally planned to walk, but I honestly didn’t know which way to go, so I saw another guy getting off the ferry with a GWS Giants scarf on and asked him which way to walk.  He told me it was a really long walk and he and his buddy were planning to uber and the next thing you know, they’ve asked me to hop in and hitch a ride. That was very awesome of them (and will be relevant to later on in our story). In the meantime, it meant that I had time to grab a beer:

Sydney Olympic Park is…huge. We’ll take a more detailed look at that in a few matches, but for now, that pic overlooks one of the multiple hotels right in the complex, close to both Stadium Australia and Giants Stadium, and there is a whole row of bars, restaurants, etc as well for folks to hang before or after games. Gates opened two hours before the match, so I drank my beer and had some buffalo cauliflower and then went to find the throngs.

I got there early enough to have….let’s say space around my seat.

But look at how damn big that oval is!  Since I had a lot of time, I took a full lap around the stadium, so let’s get another vantage point of that oval:

Yeah, I’d get tired running around that thing. Remember, as Balls taught us years ago (but eff it, I’m not digging back through the archives for the link) each of these guys runs about a half marathon per game.But I get to sit here and eat a little meat pie

In the members only section

And get my members discount on beer in the members only bar

Why yes, I am a Giants Member and damn proud of it. And enjoyed the perks. There are only about 20,000 of us, very few in the states, and even fewer that shlep across ocean(s) to actual games. Obviously, I was an unusual specimen and of great interest to the locals. But we can talk more about them later.  First, let’s see how close my seat was to the AFL equivalent of a dugout and therefore new coach Adam Kingsley.

Very close. Which came in handy later to see him talking to players subbing in and out of the game. Here he is with Kieren Briggs, who has gone from virtual nobody to one of the top ruckmen in the AFL this season (and therefore a big part of the Giants’ 7 game winning streak and push for Finals).

Before the game, each of the teams kicks around the sherrin, goes through warm ups, etc, and then runs through a big banner like you kind of only see outside of the pros in the US:

Then they take off and (after the opening bounce) run around like madmen kicking with the accuracy of NFL QB passes (description not relevant to Charmslinger, Zach Wilson, or many others).

Oh, and there was something called a DJ Tigerlily spinning at halftime, but I gave zero shits about that.

Look, I don’t want to spend TOO much time on the substance of this game, because….well the Swans manhandled my Giants, snapped their 7 game winning streak, threw the whole season in doubt, and it rained.  A LOT.

But a couple of key takeaways to share–

• I still had an awesome time despite the end result. The product on the field was entertaining, There wasn’t a ton of bullshit taking away from the game itself, people were great, and it was a first time I won’t forget.
• Speaking of limited distractions, there was virtually no in game PA or on the jumbotron announcements. Like they would announce who from the Giants scored, but if Isaac Heeney scored a goal for the Swans and you didn’t recognize him, you would know the Swans scored a goal but not exactly whom.
• When GWS scored, they showed the replay and flashed the name and stats of that scoring player on the jumbotron, but again, that’s it.
• The jumbotron and PA would announce score review results for the VAR equivalent, but not for other penalties, just little icons for push in the back or holding the ball.
• At the quarter breaks, they do a very quick stat leader announcement and then go to ads. So very weird that the PA announcer spends more time saying “thanks to Harvey Norman for sponsoring a discount for Giants fans” than “#13 scored his second goal of the night for Sydney”
• The clock, like with soccer, counts up. That may not be earth shattering to many, but when you’re watching on the WatchAFL app the next day, the clock counts down, so it was unexpected.
• They played the visiting team’s fight song after they won. Could never imagine that in the states in a million years.
• A SHOCKINGLY low percentage of Aussies were washing their hands after peeing

Oh, I almost forgot about the giveaways! They had all sorts of fun activities and free shit, but obviously the one I had to share with the group (read: Balls) was the underwear giveaway!  Banana for scale:

In the end, the Swans defeated the good guys, 96-85, and unfortunately, it didn’t feel like it was REALLY that close.  GWS felt sluggish/less intense than usual, clearly missed Finn Callaghan and Tom Greene (out with injuries), and despite it being Nick Haynes’s 200th game, they came out flat and had to chase.  Highlights here if you’re interested:

Fortunately, I had a palate cleanser the next day with some FIFA Women’s World Cup Action!  I also had several palate cleansers of cocktails between the wrap of the GWS game and the kickoff the next day, but that’s not the point right now.

First, we start with this billboard all over town that I need to know if you all find as innuendo-laden as I did:

Maybe just Balls and me.

At this point in time, I hadn’t been able to snag tickets to see a Matildas game despite a modicum of effort, so I focused on an easier get that still promised to be exciting: the Netherlands vs South Africa. This was a round of 16 game where South Africa had already exceeded expectations by topping Italy and drawing with the Argentines.  So it SHOULDN’T have been easy to get a ticket, but it was and it was like $30, which is a screaming deal for world caliber sporting events.

By way of background, Australia and New Zealand jointly hosted this World Cup, so there were games in Wellington, Auckland, Dunedin, and Hamilton (in New Zealand) and Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, and Melbourne. Aussies and New Zealanders got priority ticket access, but if you happened to randomly be in Australia like an asshole, you needed the schedule to align.  And so it did that this match was at one of the two different Sydney stadia hosting Women’s World Cup games, and this one was a bus ride plus a short walk from my hotel in the CBD (which it turns out stands for Central Business District and doesn’t mean every single place is a head shop).

You basically stumble across it nestled in the neighborhood upon your approach:

Pretty sharp looking stadium from the outside, no?

Despite the rules on not being able to bring in bottles for water unless they have ZERO branding of any kind on them, security was very easy if you don’t have a backpack/purse/whatever so I waltzed in with my collapsable branded water bottle (that I subsequently left in a rideshare in Melbourne like a dumbass).

Unreal how good my seat was for less than $30 (American currency).

Also unreal how long the line was inside for the FIFA store:

Oh, it continues:

Keep in mind that it’s like 90 minutes before the game starts.  The enthusiasm did not align with ticket availability, I guess.  Or it did since the game ended up being sold out. But whatever. Oh and btw, there were other kiosks around the stadium with (still long but) less ridiculous lines, even if it was a limited selection and I thought that “penguin” was an emu.

One thing I thought was weird/funny was that you could use Visa everywhere as a major FIFA sponsor, but if you DIDN’T have a VISA credit or Debit Card, then you had to buy prepaid Visa cards. Not a lot of demand at this kiosk.

Anyway, I walked the entirety of the stadium, grabbed a beer and some food

And then sat down for a pretty well done welcome message from the local indigenous tribal representatives

And then watched some damn good soccer, with a VERY good view of the Dutch attack to start and then later South Africa coming back toward the other end.

There were a LOT of injuries in this one, and I had an up close view of those as well:

At one of the injury stoppages (at minute 38) the fans started their first–but unfortunately not their last–attempt at the wave.

I HATE the wave with a fiery passion, especially during injuries. I have NEVER seen it going when a stretcher has come onto the field. I’m not saying Sydney is like Philly, but I think children who repeatedly try to start the wave should be sent to boarding school.

Beyond the wave, the fans were REALLY into cheering for their sides:

Ok, I just wanted to show Tulip Guy’s suit, but they really were enthusiastically on top of the action when it wasn’t halftime and they were traipsing off for refills.

And speaking of refills, ever have Jameson and Ginger in a can?  Now I have.  It was….fine.

I swear I thought one of the Springboks’ defenders was going to slug it out with her keeper. I didn’t take photos that capture that moment, but I did note the tension. And the fact that the players looked a lot more anxious than the Dutchwomen to start. The Dutch played like clockwork, precision movements to backfill players in motion, crisp passing, waiting for their opponent to make a mistake they could pounce on.  South Africa came out tight (I took a note that they look like they went out last night and needed some pedialyte) but when they got moving, it got folks excited. Lots of deep passes and quick shots, clearly playing to score and win.

The fans were a mutual admiration society, clapping for every good pass, shot, save, no matter which side. There were a lot of neutrals but the biased crowd was overwhelmingly Dutch, and you still had a LOT of clapping and cheering for South Africa. it was an awesome game, closer than the 2-0 score indicated, and I came away very impressed with both sides. And all the players were classy about it, including as they both took laps around the pitch after the match to cheers (and they returned applause back to the spectators).

And I couldn’t in good conscience go to a Dutch match and NOT take a picture of Rikki’s favorite jersey for him (couldn’t find her cousin):

Oh, it being the WOMEN’S world cup, I had a few occasions where I was the lone male in a given situation, including once in the restroom. Want to see an Australian trough?

That is pretty good design, with corners providing SOME privacy when it’s only moderately crowded and it doesn’t pool and smell like SOME troughs we know.

Back outside the stadium post match, I took a few pictures of the artwork, noting that this stadium is primarily used for rugby, aussie rules, and cricket.

Then I walked all over town, to a distillery, through some parks, past some museums, and then ended up at a gorgeous cocktail bar where I started trying to get tickets to the Matildas game the next day.

But this post is already a few hundred words longer than planned and ain’t nobody looking to scroll even further than this when they’ve got NFL procrastination teed up tonight, so I’ll close with a picture I thought could be interpreted as generally supportive OR a statement to FIFA about their past bullshit on gay rights and needing to ACTUALLY deliver on being an organization that supports LGBTQIA athletes and fans:

Signs for the World Cup were all over Sydney (and Melbourne to a lesser extent) but more to come on the 3 other AFL and 1 other WWC match I attended last month on my Great Australian Adventure. Until next time, keep bringing those boots to new places!

UPDATE: Just for blaxabbath, here are some supplemental museum/culture photos from my walk, and a bonus of a bartender in a stupid hat!

Now get out there and enjoy that football where the Jets still don’t hit as hard as the women playing Aussie Rules!