Show caption Western Sydney celebrate their 5-0 win over Sydney FC in round six of the W-League on Saturday. Photograph: Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images W-League Melbourne City, Western Sydney and the W-League’s new era Melbourne City and Western Sydney have shown how women’s football in Australia should be administered. The sooner other clubs follow suit, the sooner the game will flourish Samantha Lewis Mon 23 Dec 2019 17.00 GMT Share on Facebook

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As 2019 draws to a close, many in the women’s football community have taken to reflecting on the unprecedented growth of the game over the past ten years, most recently epitomised by over one billion people tuning in to watch the 2019 Women’s World Cup. In Australia, women’s football has experienced the greatest upheaval and now stands as one of the biggest growth-potential areas in all of Australian sport, having been largely ignored for much of its long history.

In the context of the last decade, Melbourne City’s introduction to the W-League in 2015 was arguably the first major shot across Australian football’s bow. Backed by the gargantuan resources of the City Football Group, it was only a matter of time before the new Australian franchise impressed itself onto the two senior leagues, but perhaps even they were surprised how quickly, and how easily, it happened in the women’s game.

City’s first game that season was against traditional heavyweights Sydney FC, which had signed six 2015 Women’s World Cup players in Alanna Kennedy, Kyah Simon, Leena Khamis, Servet Uzunlar, Nicola Bolger, and Teresa Polias, as well as future Matildas Amy Harrison and Teigen Allen.

Melbourne City, anchored by star internationals Jennifer Beattie, Kim Little and Jess Fishlock, led by future Arsenal coach Joe Montemurro, and complemented by an array of young, local talent, made history immediately. They defeated Sydney 6-0 and went on to win every regular season game (and two finals games) to be crowned premiers and champions in their inaugural season.

The following year, City opened a new wing of their state-of-the-art training facility that specifically catered to their women’s and youth teams, including dedicated changing rooms, a gym, medical and physiotherapy rooms, a boot room, and world-class training pitches.

Brian Marwood, the Managing Director of City Football Services, said at the time: “The W-League team is structured in all aspects of its operations to take advantage of the resources of the wider organisation … from youth development, to community programs, scouting, coaching, sports science, digital, communications and football operations. On-field success does not rely on a facility alone, or a squad, or coach, or any other single factor, but rather on a combination of elements that empowers players to succeed.”

Melbourne City went on to win the next two W-League Championships. Their holistic approach to women’s football — where improvements off the field had immediate and lasting effects on it — was the first wave of a rising tide that has helped grow women’s football in Australia.

Melbourne City were crowned champions in their first three seasons in the W-League. Photograph: Tony Mcdonough/AAP

The second wave is now beginning to surge in Sydney’s west.

Despite being founded at the same time as their A-League side in 2012, the Western Sydney Wanderers’ women’s team has never reached the same heights as their male counterparts. But their present campaign looks set to change all of that. Like Melbourne City’s triumphant first season, the Wanderers’ dazzling start to the 2019-20 season feels like a project many years in the making.

Now, as the competition nears its halfway point, Western Sydney have recorded their best-ever start to a W-League season. They remain undefeated with the best goal difference and the equal-fewest goals conceded of any team in the league. And there is perhaps no greater symbol of the Wanderers’ supremacy — nor of the uncanny repetition of history — than last Friday’s 5-0 demolition of cross-town rivals Sydney FC, a club they’d only ever defeated once in 14 previous meetings.

But Western Sydney’s dominant performance against Sydney, like Melbourne City’s in their first-ever game, wasn’t a coincidence: it was the result of a club which has begun to take its women’s program seriously, with a concerted recruitment plan, attractive player salaries, world-class training facilities and resources, and the development of a tight-knit, hard-working culture that binds players and staff together.

It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that the only other team in Western Sydney’s wheelhouse this season is Melbourne City.

Two clubs, two vastly different histories, but two parallel approaches to the W-League: both have recognised that the short season length requires a team able to hit the ground running; this has translated into squads stocked with international and club chemistry, such as City’s Matildas-heavy starting XI or Western Sydney’s North Carolina Courage coup. This thoughtful player recruitment has been complemented by an attractive playing style: organised, disciplined, and clear in each player’s roles and responsibilities.

But what most clearly ties these two clubs together is the environment in which they work. Both clubs now boast top-class training facilities with dedicated spaces for their women’s teams. And treating female footballers as professionals by providing them with the resources they need has had clear and immediate impacts on the field. Spaces like the much-lauded facilities of City and the Wanderers illustrate that old saying about the difference between men’s and women’s football: men need to win to feel good, women need to feel good to win.

Women’s football is entering a new era, and it requires more than an adjustment to the football that happens on the field. More importantly, perhaps, it requires a shift in what we should expect from football clubs generally; from accepting things as they are to a push for how things could be. That a separate changing room was singled out to me by four separate people at the Wanderers — including players, coaches, and the chief executive — demonstrated how little women’s teams in Australia have had to work with in the past.