It’s finally happening. The FIFA Women’s World Cup is getting underway this week, with the first matches of the tournament scheduled for Thursday night.
If you’re keen on following Australia, you should be ready to tune in on Thursday night as the Matildas take on the Republic of Ireland at 8pm (AEST). This match will be aired live on 7 Plus and is taking place at Stadium Australia in Sydney, with tickets already sold out.
You can also catch New Zealand taking on Norway at 5pm on the same evening, also aired on 7 Plus.
The Matildas will then play their remaining group stage matches in quick succession. They will take on Nigeria on Thursday July 27th at 8pm at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, and then they will play Canada on Monday 31st July at 8pm in Melbourne. Both of these matches will be aired on 7 Plus.
How does the match schedule work?
There are 32 teams in this year’s Women’s World Cup and they are divided into 8 separate groups. The group stage will see the 4 teams in each group play each other once at stadiums across Australia and New Zealand.
A knock-out round of the top 16 teams will then take place, followed by quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals matches.
Australia are in Group B, alongside Canada, the Republic of Ireland and Nigeria.
Where can you watch all the matches?
The Seven Network will host 15 of the matches, including all of the Matildas’ matches, live and on-demand across Channel 7 and 7 Plus.
Optus Sport will broadcast the remaining 49 matches of the World Cup, making 11 of these available for free on its streaming platform. This means there will be a total of 26 matches available to watch for free across the Seven Network and Optus Sport throughout the World Cup.
Want to get your friends, family or colleagues involved? We’ve put together some free templates you can download to create your very own Women’s World Cup sweep.