From the journey to just play to the fight for the world cup. The Matilda Effect is the exciting, inspiring, sometimes infuriating and always colourful story of the Australian women's football (soccer) team, the Matildas, and their ultimately successful struggle, alongside other women from around the world, to compete in World Cup football. From the 1980s, when women had to pay to participate in the pilot Women's World Cup, to 2019, when the principle of equal pay for women players was finally accepted amid surging interest in their game, the voices of key figures emerge. A book at once about and not about sport, and with a throughline of human rights and gender equality history, The Matilda Effect takes the reader out of the stands and onto the pitch, into the team's hotels, buses, boardrooms and social media universe, where positive change has been wrestled into being.