The 2023 Women’s World Cup has been widely acclaimed for being the best ever—this is in no small part due to the extraordinary performance of the women playing for Spain. While the award ceremony was marred by the sexist behavior of their president, fans of the game around the world have marveled as the players united to stand up to Luis Rubiales.

Jennifer Doyle, who has had an obsession with the question of Spain’s underperformance over many years prior to this tournament, calls in sports historian Brenda Elsey to talk about the importance of this moment and what it means for the international game. 

Karen lands in L.A. after tropical storm Hilary has left the building, and just in enough time for the grandest of processing sessions with Jennifer (who is still in NJ), about the end of this year’s tournament. Spain wins, and we celebrate the players’ significant victory in spite of their federation and coach.

We congratulate England and Sarina on their exceptional play throughout the tournament, and reflect on Sweden’s hope that this is their LAST bronze before they break through to the championship. And of course we get into the long term impact of the Matildas, and the Football Ferns as tournament co-hosts.

Beyond the run of play, we discuss concerns about the carbon footprint and environmental impact of World Cup tournaments more broadly, while speculating on who might win the bid to host in 2027. And we leave off with our takeaways about the growth of various national leagues, from Spain to Columbia, to the WSL and NWSL as indicated by this year’s expanded, competitive field (with only 1 NWSL player in the mix by the time we reached the semi-finals).

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Karen hops wholeheartedly on the Matildas’ bandwagon during her regular visits to Stadium Australia, as she and Jennifer both mourn the departure of Japan, and our last ACFC international, Jun Endo. We shout out the eloquent, elegiac coverage of the Matildas’ exit by ABC’s Samantha Lewis, and marvel at the depth of coverage we’ve been lucky to have during this WWC.

The cup of colonial reckoning transmutes into the empire strikes back, as we offer our analysis of the quarters and semis, as well as a preview of the final between England and Spain. Vlatko resigns! Kerr shines!

Plus, we explain why rooting for Spain is deeply layered and problematic, while we also  take a look at an elaborate L-Word-esque chart of WoSo couples that’s making the sapphic rounds in group chats around the world.