SYDNEY — The delirium that had swarmed and swirled through the Australian air for 10 days finally evaporated on Wednesday night, as if shooed out into the Tasman Sea by a wall of extreme competence. Australia’s adored Matildas had run into ironclad England, and a booming crowd of 75,784 and a louder nation of 26 million had run into reality.
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They can resume regular life in their benign winters now.
The wildly anticipated World Cup semifinal, said to echo the loud rivalries of the two nations in cricket, rugby, netball, beer consumption and other matters, went to England, 3-1, in yet another display of the Lionesses’ rarefied capacity to adapt.