The AFC Women’s Asian Cup 2026: Another Epic Matildas’ Moment
The following piece was written by Emeritus Professor David Rowe, from Western Sydney University's Institute for Culture and Society.
Three years after co-hosting an epic FIFA Women’s World Cup, Australia is sole host of the Asian Football Confederation’s AFC Women’s Asian Cup 2026. Regional powerhouses Japan, Korea DPR, China PR and the Korean Republic will compete with the Matildas and seven other teams for this major trophy.
This is a key moment for the team that emerged during the 2023 World Cup as Australia’s most valuable national sport team brand, and has seen big crowds when playing in Australia ever since. The importance of the Matildas goes well beyond women’s association football (soccer) to women’s sport in general and society as a whole. Recent research, for example, has demonstrated the deep connection between historical masculinist claims to dominance over women and gender-based violence in sport.
The Matildas will have to work hard to maintain their elevated position in Australian sport culture and to improve their standing in the world game. FIFA’s current world rankings place them 15th, well behind their highest ever position of 4th in 2017/8. Japan and Korea DPR are above them at, respectively, 8th and 9th in the world. It is conventional in Australia to link a sport team’s success to its popularity, and the Matildas’ form has been patchy since 2023. It was frankly poor in the SheBelieves Cup in the USA in early 2025.
The Matildas’ performance on the field and reputation off it has been affected by events surrounding their captain and most celebrated player, Samantha (Sam) Kerr. She has now returned to the team after an extended layoff through injury, and negative global headlines after being tried and acquitted of racially aggravated harassment of a white, male police officer in London.
The charge was clearly over-reach by the British justice system, but Kerr’s conduct on the night in question, concealment of the issue during the 2023 World Cup, Football Australia’s decision not to sanction her, and the all-round refusal to take media questions on the matter, have caused some disquiet.
Sam Kerr’s tribulations after her brilliant World Cup goal against England in Sydney in 2023, and teammate Cortnee Vine’s mental health struggles after her wildly welcomed winning penalty earlier against France in Brisbane, demonstrate how quickly fortunes can change in sport. The Matildas under new head coach Joe Montemurro will be hoping to return soon to the sublime place that was the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
They have every incentive to do so. The 2026 AFC Women’s Asian Cup functions as the qualifying mechanism for next year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup in Brazil. The Matildas will aim at the very least to be among the six teams to qualify automatically, rather than be forced to go ‘the long way round’ via the FIFA Play-Off Tournament for the last two places allocated to the AFC.
An underwhelming performance at home would surely take some of the shine off Australia’s favourite team. But to triumph in style in a tournament they have won only once in 50 years (China, 2010) would, just as certainly, cement the Matildas’ position at the apex of Australian sporting culture. Perhaps they could even replay the glory of 2023 by being declared the Australian word of the year.
ENDS.
27 February 2026
Photo credit: via Unsplash
Media Team