This metropolis down south and the big country around it grappled with the jitters early Monday night over the specter of a party long planned but about to go jarringly discontinued, in a world where discontinued parties count as lousy, particularly here.

Then Australia’s Matildas brought their urgency and the moxie they seemed to have misplaced into the cuddly little 27,000-strong soccer stadium in Melbourne’s stadium cluster, and the World Cup party of a host nation took on the dreamiest element a party can corral: sustenance. Read More