SYDNEY, Australia — Some will tell you that the Women’s World Cup branding around the host cities in Australia and New Zealand is scant, but in all nine, it’s there. You’ll see the touch of the tournament across billboards, countless lampposts and trams. There are always the ones that tell you where you are, fabric declaring “Sydney/Gadigal” waving in the breeze across the bay from the Opera House — basically, the type of sign you’d need if you had been on two dozen flights in a month and had completely lost your bearings.
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They’re accompanied by those screaming “Beyond Greatness,” the most recent in a long line of pithy tournament slogans that mean little — four years ago, France’s official slogan was “Dare to Shine.” But Beyond Greatness — was it a rallying cry asking players to use the biggest stages to offer themselves to the world, to delight with tekkers, goals and saves? Or was it a hope for the tournament to step out from the long shadow cast by the men’s game, and go beyond that specific kind of greatness?
In Brisbane on Aug. 12, after what felt like an eternity of a match between Australia and France, with the sun long having set and the humidity of the evening cloaking the crowd,…
