The same trick, presumably, explains why Barcelona is facing C.D. Tacón, the amateur team that now trains at Real Madrid’s facilities, and will, in a couple of years, be rechristened as Real’s women’s team.

It makes sense. The World Cup injected more interest and energy and momentum into women’s soccer. Vast television audiences all over the world watched England reach the semifinals, Spain run the United States close, Italy emerge from two decades of obscurity and the Netherlands get all the way to the final.

More and more players are household names. Now is the time to build on that enthusiasm, to let people know that this need not be a once-every-four-years sort of an interest, or even a once-a-season hobby, like Wimbledon. You can go and see the players you cheered in the World Cup every other week, and the chances are it will not cost you the small fortune that going to see a top-flight men’s game would. The attendances this weekend should prove that there are plenty of people out there who want to do just that.

But it has to be remembered that this is only the start. Less attractive games, in smaller stadiums, on weekends when the men’s game brings crucial domestic fixtures, will attract fewer people. That will not prove that interest in the women’s game has waned, and it should not suggest its growth has stalled or its post-World Cup impetus has been lost.

Likewise, clubs should not be fooled into thinking that the occasional home game in a larger stadium is enough. It is a gesture, if it is only every so often, when the men have a gap in their calendar and the turf lies idle. And it is a mixed message, surely, this idea that the men’s stadium is the “proper” stadium that the women should be grateful to grace once in a while. Might it not be better to familiarize fans with the stadiums the women ordinarily use, to make them a true home?