"We've been hoping for that for four, five, six years," new Sydney FC player Bianca Galic told media at the A-League season launch in Sydney.
The "that" in question is full-time professionalism for the A-League Women.
"We don't, as female footballers, necessarily want to work on the side as well," she explained. "It's just something that we have to do because the league itself isn't paying enough for us to survive outside of that.
"I would love to just do training and then call it a day. I would love to not rush off to work or have to time my gym at seven o'clock when I finish my work shift.
"I'm hoping that for the future generations that will all be sort of done and dusted and in the past, and they can obviously focus on football and be the best athletes that they can be."
While the A-League Women season itself is now fully home and away, player contracts are not for the entire year. The playing cohort is made up of players who work outside of football to make ends meet; 62% of players according to the Professional Footballers Australia report released after the 2023-24 season. Of course there are exceptions to this rule, but the reality for the majority of A-League Women players is they participate in a juggling act they'd all hoped would have been remedied at some point in the last several years.
The act of balancing is a common one as the A-League Women enters its 18th season.
The players will balance football and work. The league will balance the books as it tightens the purse strings. The fans will balance their feelings of joy that the Dub is back with that uneasy feeling that has loomed over much of this offseason.
There was the existential threat over the future of Canberra United, which was rescued by a cash injection to play in season 2024-25 and was saved again by ACT government funds to play in season 2025-26.
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"We are pleased that we will be able to take to the field as Canberra United once more for the 2025-26 Ninja A-League," Capital Football CEO Samantha Farrow commented in July.
"The club are extremely appreciative of the continued financial support of the ACT Government and are now in the process of appointing the coaching staff and assembling a playing roster to participate in the league.
"We strongly reiterate that this will be the final season that Capital Football be running Canberra United FC.
"As stated previously, the growth of the team, the competition, and the associated financial commitments has become too large for a Member Federation to adequately manage to the professional standards that these players deserve."
The team in green has bought another year. Michelle Heyman will extend both her record games and goals appearances in the league but, as of now, there is no guarantee of Canberra United will exist beyond this season.
While one team in green was kept afloat, another wasn't so lucky with Western United being placed into "conditional hibernation" for the upcoming campaign. There is still plenty of uncertainty about the club's future as legal and administrative processes play out. It would be a surprise if the Tarneit-based team returned next season.
Their absence means a whole club's worth of fans waiting for a resolution; an entire offseason of anticipation with no outlet to channel it. A whole club's worth of players who have scrambled to find a playing opportunity elsewhere. A whole club's worth of backroom staff, medical personnel, front-office workers who are without jobs in an industry where roles aren't plentiful to begin with. For Australian women's football, there will be fewer top-tier games played and fewer opportunities for players.
When asked about it on ESPN's The Far Post podcast, Matildas coach Joe Montemurro expressed his disappointment.
"This is just another [disappointment], another sort of disappointing opportunity because I know Western United were really, I think, an important model club in the landscape of women's football and men's football in terms of their philosophy of development," he said.
"And it's a club that had an important ethos of wanting to develop local players and really help the landscape of that area of work.
"Sustainability is a big word now in sport because there's very few clubs that are doing some really, really good work out there and are able to sustain themselves worldwide. I'm not talking just in Australia.
"And it's a pity that it's gone that way. All it does, it just delays the opportunity for elite football."
But the A-League Women is not firmly stuck in doom and gloom. There's always excitement when a new season peeks out from the horizon.
The Central Coast Mariners will aim to defend their title, chased by the likes of Melbourne Victory, Melbourne City and Adelaide United. Sydney FC will hope to return to the finals fold after missing the postseason for the first time in league history. The competition as a whole will watch on to see just what Bev Priestman and the Wellington Phoenix can do.
And this season in particular carries with it the excitement of another major tournament on Australian soil, when Asia's best come to town for the Women's Asian Cup in March 2026.
However, even that carries with it some angst. The hope is that this tournament will provide the women's game a boost. One that everyone thought it would receive -- and maintain -- post-Women's World Cup in 2023.
As the season approaches, all in the game will walk the tightrope once again. Holding concerns about the future of the game, frustrations that the same issues continue to linger despite years of calling for change, and excitement of another season of the Dub at her chaotic best all at the same time.