Add Category
In downtown Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland, the city of sails is gleaming.
Hundreds of moored yachts bob in the water, their masts pointing skyward, desperate to be put into use.
Rangitoto Island guards the harbour as the ferries head off from Princess Wharf to picture-perfect destinations.
In other words, situation normal in Aotearoa/New Zealand's biggest and only global city, which is just the point: it is not a normal day.
There are virtually no clues the world's third largest sporting event is about to kick off – at Auckland's Eden Park — when New Zealand's Football Ferns host Norway on Thursday night.
Major sporting events breed bunting. You would expect Auckland to be bedecked in flags, posters and bunting on every spare pole, pylon and building.
After all, events like the World Cup come around just once every four years, so it is a city's chance to show off to the world.
Why not advertise the fact that billions of people around the world are looking at you?
But here I spot just one lonely flag flapping in the afternoon breeze in a country where rugby union is the sporting religion.
"I just don't think they're interested," said one girl from Auckland Girls' Grammar School.
One of her friends added: "At our school, soccer's not really a big thing, and here we're more into rugby and league and stuff."
A woman from Palmerston North admitted to being a fair-weather friend.
"If it's fine [weather] we're going to go; if it's not, we're going to watch it on TV," she said.
Her friend from Tauranga was outraged at the lack of interest.
"I think it's been really disappointing that people aren't as excited as they should be," she said.
"[Among] people I know, no-one's really talking about it and they should be because it's the World Cup.
"It's going to be watched by millions around the world and it's showcasing New Zealand," she added.
One woman has plans to go to a match but is yet to buy a ticket.
"Isn't that that laid-back Kiwi thing, you wait till the last minute? You've got to see what the offer is on the night," she said.
But others have made their plans.
One woman tells me she has tickets for the match between World Cup favourites, the United States, and Portugal.
"It is quite exciting, I think everyone is quite excited about it," she said.
"Great vibes already in the crowd," says one man who has bought tickets to matches in Auckland and Wellington.
So, it seems the lack of bunting belies a quiet groundswell of interest in the women's game.
After all, more than 1.3 million tickets have been sold for World Cup matches in Australia and New Zealand, which means this will almost certainly be the best-attended tournament in history.
Of those tickets, more than 350,000 have been sold for matches in New Zealand spread among Auckland, Ōtepoti/Dunedin, Pōneke/Wellington and Kirikiriroa/Hamilton.
If you want to see that passion, head down to any local football club, where the sport is hugely popular.
At Western Springs AFC, you will find 10-year-old teammates Marianna Hadnett and Violet Stevens at training.
They are jumping out of their skins about the chance to watch the Football Ferns play at home.
"I'm super excited," Violet said.
Marianna adds: "I'm so excited, Dad got tickets and I get to go with my best friend.
"I guess I like to see women play football."
Marianna said seeing women play football had inspired her to emulate her heroes, the Football Ferns.
"I definitely think I could because I think I'd be good enough," she said.
Marianna's father Billy Hadnett — the team's coach and a local school principal — has seen the effect the World Cup has had on girl's football.
"It's going to beef it up. There's been a lot of focus on girls football over … the last 12 months, if not longer," he said.
Ironically, it was the Western Springs' senior women's team who may have done more than the Football Ferns to raise the profile of the game in New Zealand.
Earlier this year, the players threatened a walk-out unless they were granted equal pay and conditions to the club's male players, even though it is a largely amateur organisation.
The issue was more about conditions, such as access to the best grounds, coaches and support staff.
After a bitter two-month fight, the club agreed to their terms in mediation.
The players have achieved what the Football Ferns won when they struck pay equity in 2018, ahead of other teams like the US and Australia (the Matilda's get the same percentage of revenue as the Socceroos, but in reality it amounts to less as prize money for women is generally smaller).
The fight for equity is just one battle in New Zealand football. The other is for the hearts and minds of young kids like Marianna and Violet.
"It's so amazing when those little girls are sharing with us how much we are inspiring them and they are not little wins, they are big wins for us," Football Ferns coach Jitka Klimková told a media conference on Wednesday.
Football Ferns focused
The Football Ferns' veteran co-captain is the charismatic Ali Riley, who also leads Angel City FC in the American National Women's Soccer League.
Riley is going into her fifth World Cup but is yet to win a match at the event.
"Hopefully this time we achieve our goal of winning a World Cup game and doing that at home," she said.
"That will be the greatest tournament, the greatest game that I will ever have in my career."
Riley said playing in-front of a sell-out crowd of 40,000 people at Eden Park would develop an enormous boost for the game.
"I do think there's a lot of excitement and we want to make everyone proud and so I hope there'll be a lot of people for not just our game but for all games," Riley said.
"I hope the excitement is there and hope we do well so that maybe people who didn't know about it, they'll hear about it and come see us make history."
Riley said she was inspired as a girl by watching the 1999 World Cup final when the US famously defeated China via penalties on home soil, with Brandi Chastain's celebration becoming an iconic moment for the sport.
"I know what that can do for any little girl seeing these players: these awesome, confident, empowered women and athletes, just living their dreams," she said.
"And I think that will help the young people watching dream even bigger and believe anything is possible."
As for that gargantuan-sized elephant in the room, rugby union, Klimková said this tournament was football's best chance to seize some sort of initiative.
"I really believe this is an incredible opportunity for this country to not just be the rugby country, but to actually really wake up the love of football, because we all know women's football is one of the most beautiful sports in the world," she said.
US driven by 'belief'
Across town, the mighty US team needs no convincing about the beauty of their sport: they practically invented it.
The US comes into the World Cup looking for its third consecutive title and is still ranked number one, despite recent injuries and an overhaul of the squad.
The younger members of the squad are being taught about the team's culture and sense of belief by old hands, like defender Kelley O'Hara, who is about to play in her fourth World Cup.
"The word 'belief' is a great word to bring up, to talk about this group and this team," she told ABC Sport.
"I think it's a word that defines this team from not just for now, but for years and years past.
"[If] there's one second left on the clock … we believe that that's enough time to make a difference and to do what we need to do to win a game."
There are metaphorically just seconds on the clock for the biggest US star, Megan Rapinoe, who will retire after the World Cup.
O'Hara was emotional when speaking about Rapinoe, who is the winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and women's football's outspoken advocate for LGBTQIA+ rights.
After a storied career, Rapinoe will likely be restricted to roles off the bench during the team's World Cup campaign.
"The 'Pinoe' that the world sees is an incredible person and human, and that is her also up close and personal," O'Hara said.
"She brings a sense of humour and lightness but intensity and empathy, and she's one of her kind.
"It's sad to think about this being her last (World Cup), but she's done such incredible things for this thing and for the world."
If Rapinoe can help the US win a hat-trick of World Cup titles, that would be the cherry on the cake and will add to a lasting legacy.
But of course, 31 other teams will be trying to stop her.
Let the World Cup begin.
Loading