KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Virtually anywhere anyone turned on Saturday’s match at CPKC Stadium, an unprecedented, indelible and moving image awaited as the Kansas City Current commenced the way to a bold — albeit absurdly overdue — new frontier in women’s sports.

You could sense it in the wonder of the little girls gazing out into an atmosphere unlike anything that ever had existed before as they walked alongside Current players being introduced before the euphoric 5-4 victory over the Portland Thorns in their National Women’s Soccer League opener.

You could feel it in the spirit of three generations of women together at the game — including Barb Bohon, who played softball at the University of Kansas in the mid-1970s, and Becca Dixon: “I get emotional,” she said, smiling, “hence the (sun)glasses.”

You could appreciate it in the words from the landmark Title IX legislation inscribed on the wall of the players’ entry to the field, an image that was the most stirring part of NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman’s arrival into the stadium.

And you could hear it in the pregame testimonial of Michelle Akers, one of the dozen-plus members of the 1985 inaugural U.S. women’s national soccer team honored at halftime by the franchise whose iconic logo features the K above the C to symbolize standing on the shoulders of those who came before.

On the pitch of what is believed to be the first stadium or arena “on the planet” purpose-built explicitly by and for a women’s professional team, Akers said, “I never felt like we had a home for women’s soccer.”

And now there is — and, from that, an epicenter for all that will follow from the approximately $120 million, 11,500-seat stadium project that was almost entirely privately funded.

So if all of this wasn’t exactly like landing on the moon, well, this one small step for women certainly was one giant leap for womankind — and yes, mankind — with Kansas City serving as the launch point to another galaxy.

And that’s what really made this a day to savor and a day that will reverberate forever here:

This was at once a distinctly Kansas City enterprise, from the surging Missouri River to the north and the downtown skyline to the southwest to the local flavor within and the co-ownership of Angie and Chris Long and Brittany and Patrick Mahomes (and their “KC Baby” chant), and a barrier-shattering experience with global implications.

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