Sport SA chief executive Leah Cassidy is throwing her support behind the plan for a second fan site as the state revels in women’s sport “coming of age” and the Matildas “capture the nation’s heartbeat” in their FIFA World Cup campaign.

Premier Peter Malinauskas said that Memorial Drive is the best option for the weather and crowd sizes as the state reaches “peak fever pitch around the Matildas” as they take on the Lionesses.

“And rightly so, I can’t think of a bigger sporting accomplishment that we’ve made at a national level for some time,” he said today, adding that it gave room for another 7000 people to watch the event along with the Festival Plaza zone.

Australia has revelled in the national women’s team making history, a peak 7.2 million Seven Network audience watching the Matildas beat France on Saturday night in a heart-stopping penalty shoot-out, winning 7 to 6.

It was Cortnee Vine with less than 25 games in the green and gold who slotted Australia’s winning goal as the 10th penalty taker in front of 49,461 fans in Brisbane.

England emerged the victor in its on-field battle with Colombia, winning two to one, and Australians are set to back their women’s team fresh off the back of intense men’s Ashes cricket rivalry with England.

The Premier said that despite the Adelaide Oval being suggested as a potential venue for Wednesday’s showdown, Memorial Drive and its big screen and additional screens is the best option for an additional option for larger crowds and potentially bad weather.

There were about 2500 fans at the festival plaza site which has a 3000-person capacity on the weekend and another 191,000 people in Adelaide watched the tense battle on Seven.

Cassidy watched the weekend game with family at home but said “it’s a whole new level when you are surrounded by thousands of fans” watching a women’s team that is not only re-shaping Australia’s football history but also the playing field for women in sport.

“I think this is game changing, added to the Australian national netball team winning the World Cup,” Cassidy said. The Diamonds won the World Cup on August 6 for the twelth time after beating England 61 to 45 in Cape Town.

Huge viewer numbers are being drawn to the Matildas games, the round of 16 match versus Denmark attracted more than 6.5 million Australian viewers on Seven and 7Plus.

The State Government released figures showing there were 53.9 million viewers globally tuned in to watch England and China’s final group stage match at Hindmarsh Stadium in Adelaide.

Cassidy said the Matildas wins are giving young women and girls hope for new pathways in sport, impetus for governments to spend money on continually upgrading football and sporting fields where there are currently no female change rooms, and challenging the role of mothers playing at an elite level.

She pointed to images of Matildas players celebrating with their children, saying it was not many years ago that “many women athletes spoke about delaying motherhood because you couldn’t get back into a national team if you had a child, this is a huge change”.

“I think for young girls coming through… they see they can have 75,000 people in the stadium, tens of thousands more in fan venues, that’s a legacy you can’t put money on,” Cassidy said.

At the recent Power of Her symposium held as part of the FIFA World Cup in Adelaide, Cassidy said the FIFA secretary general Fatma Samoura said part of hosting the event was about nations then committing to developing the sport in the years following.

“She said ‘part of the conversation with the hosting nations is what are you doing to create the spaces, the physical spaces, for the millions of girls who are going to come after this?’” Cassidy said.