This is only one game further than the Matildas have gone at previous World Cups, but it's just different.

One home soil, in front of comfortably the biggest crowds at any Women's World Cup, with record numbers watching on TV and streaming ... this is an enormous inflection point in Australian sporting history.

Socceroos' famous run to the round of 16 at the men's World Cup in 2006 was touted as a similar moment and administrators have been criticised for how they failed to capitalise on it.

This time has to be different.

The Matildas are brilliant and young enough to keep getting better from here.

Mary Fowler is only 20, Clare Hunt is 24, Ellie Carpenter is 23, and Kyra Cooney-Cross and subs Charlotte Grant and Courtney Nevin are 21.