“It’s pumping,” came the message from a friend at the Sydney Football Stadium an hour before the match. He sent a photo of Colombian fans partying outside the ground. There was even an impersonator of Rene Higuita, the hirsute former Colombian goalkeeper who became a cult hero for his scorpion kicks and leaving his net unguarded to score goals at the other end.

This was just a taste of the most exciting sporting and cultural event I have attended anywhere in years. It took place in the centre of Sydney on Sunday, and like most of the Women’s World Cup, it was hidden in plain sight. To those who didn’t see the match either live or on television, all I can say is poor you.

There were 35,033 people in Australia who were born in Colombia in the 2021 census, according to the Bureau of Statistics, and it felt like every last one of them was at the SFS. Probably more, given the neutrals became Colombian for a night. Poor Germany, too. They can’t have expected to travel to Sydney to play an away match against Colombia, but that’s what they got. Unable to overcome the crowd noise and a dauntless opponent, the world No.2 team lost to the world No.27 in dramatic circumstances.

The debate in Australia has been how we have so successfully hidden a global sporting event from ourselves. Former SBS football commentator Lucy Zelic wrote on these pages: “Perhaps most jarring is that this particular World Cup is on Australian soil, and given our tapestry of cultures, which encompasses more than 270 ancestries, it’s baffling. Each of the 32 nations competing at this tournament has a proud community living in Australia.”

Australia’s Colombian community made sure it didn’t miss out, watching the team defend staunchly against a bigger, precision-crafted opponent – at one point, the Germans had completed 118 passes to Colombia’s 36 – before grabbing the lead through Linda Caicedo’s sweet strike, missing a late chance to double the margin, giving away a penalty to surrender their lead, and then, off a stoppage-time corner, snatching a win thanks to Manuela Vanegas’ perfect header. And all this amid an atmosphere lifted straight out of Bogota into Moore Park.

It’s not just the demographic segments of our community that missed out on the thrills: it’s everyone, except for Optus Sport subscribers. For Sydney, it was the best international event since the 2000 Olympics, yet it passed mostly unseen.

Who knew a World Cup might be like this? Not the federal government, which omitted to put this global sporting carnival on its anti-siphoning list for television rights. Optus has copped some heat for only onselling 15 of the 64 games to its free-to-air customer Seven, but really, having committed itself to football and been allowed to buy the rights, Optus is entitled to get what it can.

Football Australia has offered reassuring but ineffectual statements, and the government says it is reviewing the rules to ensure such a stuff-up is not repeated. A stuff-up, by universal consent, it is.