It seems like every World Cup presents us with a number of “this is how far they’ve come” moments – epiphanies that usually accompany an eye-opening win. France had theirs in 2011 when their band of Lyon products derailed Canada in the group stage, while Australia opened eyes four years later when their long commitment to youth delivered a knockout-round win over Brazil. Indeed, compared to what those countries had done before, look at how far they’d come.
With Canada today against New Zealand in Grenoble, the context was drastically different, but the end point is the same.