As the full-time whistle pierced the rainy Sydney night, Solai Washington sprinted to the bench and leapt into the arms of her screaming Jamaican teammates.

Several substitutes dressed in black warm-up jackets spilled onto the field to hug their drenched, exhausted friends. Goalkeeper Becky Spencer could not wipe the grin off her face.

In the stands, fans with painted faces holding flags of green, yellow and black danced and sang and cheered. Lorne Donaldson, the head coach, gripped the shoulders of his assistants with a look of almost disbelief.

Based on these scenes of unbridled joy and jubilation, you would have assumed that Jamaica had just won their opening 2023 Women's World Cup group game against world number 5 France.

They didn't, but their 0-0 draw against one of the tournament's heavyweight teams felt like a win all the same.

"The last World Cup we didn't get a point," defender Deneisha Blackwood said afterwards, "so just to get a point in a big game, it's a victorious feeling for us."

It was an even more impressive feat given where the Jamaican women's national team have come from — particularly over the past four years.

In 2019, when they made their tournament debut in France, Jamaica lost all three of their group games 3-0, 5-0, and 4-1.

Their preparation had been marred by chronic under-funding of their women's national team program by the Jamaican Football Federation, including the entire team being disbanded in 2016 due to lack of investment.

The team's saving grace was none other than Cedella Marley, daughter of Reggae legend and football fanatic Bob Marley, who organised sponsorships and regular fundraisers — including recording and releasing an original song called Strike Hard — to support the players.

Their circumstances were mirrored by multiple nations at the 2019 tournament — including many of those who failed to get very far including South Africa, Argentina, Chila, Cameroon, and Nigeria.

And then there was Thailand. In their first group match of the World Cup, the South-East Asian nation was infamously beaten 13-0 by eventual winners USA, spotlighting the massive disparities between the "haves" and the "have-nots" in the women's game.

Like Jamaica, Thailand's national team was kept afloat by a single benefactor, Nualphan Lamsam, who also acted as the team's general manager and employer for many of its part-time players in her insurance company.

The USA, meanwhile, was filled with full-time athletes playing regularly in one of the world's best leagues, and were also in the midst of an equal pay battle and collective bargaining agreement negotiations with their federation (which they eventually won).

From a Thai perspective, the USA were galaxies beyond where they currently stood.

Which is why, when FIFA president Gianni Infantino announced that the 2023 edition would be expanded from 24 to 32 teams for the first time, the immediate question became: Would the addition of eight more teams dilute the quality of the World Cup and generate even more Thailand-like scorelines?

So far, the opening games of the tournament have provided a resounding answer: no.

Jamaica's 0-0 draw against France on Sunday was perhaps the most impressive of the lot given the Caribbean side are ranked 37 places below their opponents and had such contrasting build-ups to the tournament, with The Reggae Girlz once again having to turn to crowd-funding to support their preparations.

But across the group stage so far, we've seen tighter score-lines — and arguably better performances — than many would have predicted given the state of the international game even just four years ago.

Earlier on Sunday, 2019 runners-up the Netherlands only defeated debutants Portugal 1-0, while Olympic silver medallists Sweden barely squeaked past a resilient South African side 2-1.

On Saturday, fellow debutants Haiti put up an impressive fight against reigning European Champions England, who only managed a (lucky) 1-0 win, and Asian minnows Vietnam kept world champions USA to a 3-0 scoreline — a far cry from the Thailand game of four years ago.

In the tournament's opening match, co-hosts New Zealand secured a famous 1-0 win over former winners Norway, while debutants the Philippines were only beaten 2-0 by Switzerland.

Which begs the question: why? What has happened over the past four years that has seemingly begun to close the gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots"?

It goes back to what Infantino said when he announced the 32-team tournament back in 2019.

"The expansion reaches far beyond the eight additional participating teams; it means that, from now on, dozens more member associations will organise their women's football programme knowing they have a realistic chance of qualifying," he said.