Star striker Christine Sinclair to lead Canada at World Cup in Germany

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Canada's Christine Sinclair, left, heads the ball past China PR's Gaoping Zhou, right, during women's international friendly soccer match action in Toronto on Thursday, September 30, 2010. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

It wouldn't be much of a stretch to say Christine Sinclair grew up with a ball affixed to her foot.

It was a coach with a keen eye for young talent that first spotted Sinclair dribbling up and down the sidelines at her older brother's soccer camp. She was keeping herself occupied, tapping the ball ahead with her tiny feet. She was three at the time.

"The coach called me the next day and asked if Christine would like to play for his under-seven team," mom Sandra Sinclair said. "I told him, 'She's not even four yet!'"

That day would ultimately kick-start the career of Canada's finest female player and captain of Canada's sixth-ranked team for the FIFA Women's World Cup that opens Sunday in Germany.

Fast forward 25 years and the powerful striker has scored a Canadian-best 116 goals in 159 appearances for the national team, and is a five-time finalist for the FIFA women's player of the year award.

And it's only a matter of time, according to Canada's Italian-born coach Carolina Morace, before Sinclair is not just one of the best women's players on the planet, but the very best. When she won her sixth straight Canadian female player of the year award — she's won every year since the award was introduced in 2006 — Morace told her to "just wait" until she won FIFA's global award.

It's a lofty achievement that's not easy for Sinclair to get her head around.

"It's hard for me to comprehend in that it is a team sport and I feel personally I can't be in the same group as a Birgit Prinz (of Germany) or (Brazil's) Marta, because our team hasn't had the success that their national teams have had," Sinclair said. "So I think until I can help lead Canada to something great, I don't know if I agree with her statement yet."

Sinclair hopes that something great will happen in the coming weeks when she makes her third appearance on soccer's grandest stage. The Canadians kick off their World Cup on Sunday against two-time defending champion Germany in Berlin.

Sinclair's greatest gift on the pitch, said her coach, is her winning-is-everything attitude.

"She's a champion, in her mind," Morace said. "Her mind is the mind of a champion. It's easy to work with a player like her because she wants. She wants to be better."

It was a winning mindset, said Sandra Sinclair, honed over years of chasing her older brother Michael around the field. She always strove to be better — or at least as good as her brother.

"She was always trying to keep up to her brother and all his friends, she played football with the guys, soccer with the guys, baseball with the guys, and these guys were three years older," Sandra said.

Christine played on her brother's all-star baseball team until she eventually had to give up the sport to focus on soccer. She still wears the No. 12 of her favourite childhood athlete: former Toronto Blue Jays star Roberto Alomar.

Sandra Sinclair said her daughter was just a natural athlete. Think of a female version of Canada's basketball star Steve Nash — probably world class in whatever endeavour they chose.

"She was a top scorer in soccer probably most of her life, but she also even at a young age seemed to read the game well, if she couldn't get a shot, she was really good at passing it to other people," Sandra said. "As a mother, you don't like to brag, but she's just a natural athlete, she is a fantastic swimmer, she skis, she water skis, she golfs, she played basketball. But she chose soccer and I'm very happy."

As are her teammates.

"She is just so determined to win," said longtime Canadian star Kara Lang, who played alongside Sinclair for a decade before a knee injury prompted her retirement this year. "It's not a matter of being cocky, but she is so completely confident in her abilities and she knows what she's capable of. I think that's huge at that level.

"It's just a certain attitude of a competitor and a winner. She knows how good she is, but in the best way possible, not in a way that would be to her detriment or anything like that. She's at the same time a great leader for the team too."

Sinclair grew up surrounded by soccer players.

Sandra's brothers Brian and Bruce Gant both played professionally in the North American Soccer League. Sandra herself was one of the first females to play on Vancouver's Lower Mainland, on a team comprised of wives of the men's team Christine's dad Bill played for. Christine's brother Michael, of course, played, along with all 10 of her cousins.

The Sinclair home was always a flurry of activity of rushing to and from sporting events. Sandra would mark games and practices on the kitchen calendar with initials — "C", "M," or "B" for Bill, Christine's dad.

The house suffered a few broken windows over the years. A soccer ball was once booted through the basement glass. The kitchen and living room windows were both shattered by baseballs.

Sandra said her daughter could almost always be found out in the yard with some piece of sporting equipment, either knocking around a golf ball or "being a monkey" booting a soccer ball back and forth over the roof with her brother.

Sinclair made B.C.'s under-14 provincial team when she was just 11, and went on to star for Canada's silver medallists at the inaugural FIFA U-19 world championship. Sinclair's 10 goals in the tournament — still a record — earned her the Golden Boot award as the leading scorer and Golden Ball as tournament MVP.

She rewrote the scoring record books at the University of Portland, leading the Pilots to an NCAA title in her final year and winning the Honda-Broderick Cup as the NCAA's top female athlete, in any sport. She'd chosen Portland because the Pilots' head coach at the time Clive Charles was a family friend. Charles died in 2003 of prostate cancer, which devastated Sinclair.

The five-foot-nine forward has continued to evolve under Morace, who's completely transformed the Canadian team's playing style since she was hired in 2009. Once masters of the long ball, Morace has implemented a finesse-style possession game.

Morace is constantly encouraging the 28-year-old Sinclair, who also plays for the Western New York Flash of Women's Professional Soccer, to beat players one-on-one rather than instinctively making a pass.

"That one's still a work in progress," Sinclair said with a laugh. "She definitely thinks that I can be more aggressive and be a little bit more selfish on the soccer field, which is so difficult for me to do. She's constantly reminding me to take people on, to take risks. . . because the one time you do beat them you're on a breakaway. But that's still a work in progress."

Morace has seen significant progress from her star player.

"Before, when she'd get the ball she passed immediately," said the 47-year-old coach. "Now she's not only a good scorer. . . She has more of a feel to do what she wants. And she can still do more. She has to understand that she's really one of the best players in the world. And that she can become the best player in the world.

"She just has to trust herself."

Sandra Sinclair, who's babysitting Christine's Pomeranian pup "Nutmeg" while her daughter is away, takes talk of Christine being the world's best in stride. That's not what's important to her, said the mom.

"As a mother you just want to see them do well and have fun," she said, "no matter what level they're playing at."