Each and everyone of the team may be part-time players, but they will forever be fulltime champions in the brave new world of women’s sport they have helped to usher in.

One day, future generations, will look back on a time when women’s sport was seen as less worthy of attention with the same degree of head shaking we reserve for women being refused the vote.

Shine a light on something and it looks brighter; turn out the lights, and everything looks dull: that’s the quandary of women’s sport.

Even at the weekend, on the eve of the Japan showdown, it was not hard to find someone propping up a bar who was prepared to slur out the old tosh that women’s sport just “isn’t as good”.

Given he could barely walk at the time, let alone run out on the pitch against the Rising Sun, Sweden or Brazil, this newspaper decided to ignore him.

Women have been making huge efforts in all manner of sports for generations, yet it takes a Matilda moment for many of us to pay attention.

Playing at international level, these players, and those on whose shoulders they stand, have always been worthy of support – but have not been front and centre for media outlets or sponsors.

Female athletes are competing in an environment where male players in any sporting code get headlines for breathing, let alone performing well.

Perhaps flying under the radar is not such a bad thing: one commentator during this World Cup campaign was taken at the refreshingly low-key and professional attitude displayed in the Matilda ranks.

He saw little of the self-aggrandisement or, heaven forbid, simulation so common in the men’s game at international level.

Less attention has perhaps translated into less ego.

What it should not translate into is less money.

Fulltime wages for the Matildas would strike a goal for female athletes everywhere, in any code.