Yesterday (12 August), the 2023 Women's World Cup played host to an incredibly dramatic, climactic and for one team traumatic penalty shoot out.
The tournament is being hosted by Australia and New Zealand and 'the Matildas' were playing against France.
With defending champions USA failing to make it three World Cup wins in a row after losing on penalties to Sweden, the World Cup really is up for grabs.
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Though New Zealand didn't make it beyond the group stages, Australia were still keeping the hopes of one of the host nations alive and had to get past France to keep the dream going.
However, after a 0-0 draw after extra time it went to the dreaded penalty shoot out and there were plenty of eyes glued to the drama.
It was 3-3 after the first penalties before Australia and France both scored their next three each to bring it to 6-6.
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Both teams then missed their next penalty to frazzle the nerves of pretty much everyone watching, never mind the players on the pitch.
France missed yet another penalty before Australia's Cortnee Vine kept her cool to score and send the Matildas into the semi-finals where they'll play current European champions England.
According to ABC the game was the most viewed TV event of 2023 in Australia and it wasn't just people on the ground that were following the action.
Footage from a flight showed pretty much every passenger tuning into the penalty shoot out and cheering along when Vine scored the winning goal, and we say 'pretty much every passenger' because there was one screen which was quite obviously not focused on the football.
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The video showed that while everyone else was watching Australia defeat France one person was more interested in watching The Lord of The Rings: The Return of the King.
Footage showed that while Vine was stepping up to take her penalty this one passenger was gazing at Sir Ian McKellen's performance as Gandalf in the third Lord of the Rings movie.
More specifically, it was the scene where Frodo wakes up and is reunited with the surviving (sorry Boromir) members of the Fellowship that he last saw at the end of the first movie.
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Since this scene is pretty late in the film, it's safe to say they weren't really bothered about watching the game as Return of the King is a rather long movie and getting to that point in it would have left no time for the Matildas.
To be fair, not everyone is into football and Lord of the Rings is absolutely amazing so I think we can understand this one passenger not getting in on the World Cup.
Now of course the important question is whether they were watching the extended edition of Lord of the Rings because once you've seen those, the standard versions can't really compare.
Topics: Football, Sport, Australia, Lord Of The Rings
Joe Harker