Six-pack of Canadians on tap

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This article was published 19/03/2021 (1965 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When the quarterfinals of the UEFA Women’s Champions League kick off Wednesday, six Canadians will be involved in what is women’s club football’s most prestigious competition.

In fact, all four ties of the last eight will feature a Canadian international. Each will have an important role to play in propelling their teams into the final four, and, beyond that, to the May 16 final in Gothenburg, Sweden.

The showdown contest, should they advance that far, would represent a home match for Rosengard.

The Malmo-based club hasn’t progressed beyond the quarterfinals since 2004, when it lost a semifinal game to Frankfurt, and to bolster its chances this time around it signed Canadian goalkeeper Stephanie Labbe in December.

Labbe, 34, kept a vital clean sheet in her side’s 2-0 win at Austria’s St. Polten in last week’s round-of-16 decider, but to advance she’ll have to keep Bayern Munich sharpshooters Lea Schuller and Klara Buhl at bay over two legs.

Should Rosengard pull off the upset, it faces the prospect of a semifinal match  against one of Chelsea and Wolfsburg.

Chelsea’s Jessie Fleming represents the Canadian content in that matchup.

Since joining the Blues in the summer, the 23-year-old has struggled to break into a midfield already including the likes of Melanie Leupolz, Maren Mjelde and Ji So-yun. That said, she made the most of a run of matches in the League Cup, a competition she helped win last weekend thanks to a 6-0 trouncing of Bristol City in the final.

Currently atop the Women’s Super League, Chelsea is without doubt the best team in England and represent the country’s best chance at a second Champions League and first since 2007, when Arsenal lifted the trophy.

On the other side of the draw, tenacious midfielder and Canada captain-in-waiting Janine Beckie will look to take Manchester City into a first semifinal game since 2018 when she and her teammates face Barcelona over two legs on March 14 and 31.

Like Fleming, the 26-year-old has largely been a depth player in the Super League, what with forwards Chloe Kelly and Ellen White and midfielders Sam Mewis and Keira Walsh getting prominent minutes. But she has been a go-to contributor in the Champions League and played from the start in Chelsea’s 5-0 drubbing of Fiorentina last week Thursday. 

She’ll start against Barcelona in Monza, Italy, (the first leg is being played outside Spain because of COVID-19), and will no doubt be a key cog in a very good team attempting a breakthrough in this competition.

Should City fend off its Catalan challengers, the club will be faced with the daunting prospect of going head to head with a women’s football heavyweight: either Paris Saint-Germain or Olympique Lyonnais.

Losers to Lyon in one of last season’s semifinals, unbeaten PSG is currently one point clear of its French rivals atop Division 1. Against any other opponent, PSG might be considered the favourites over two legs, but Lyon has won five Champions Leagues in a row and is the undisputed queen of Europe.

Two Canadians will be looking to change that.

Already one of the best right-backs in the world, Ashley Lawrence only padded her reputation with a goal-scoring performance in PSG’s round-of-16 first leg win over Sparta Prague. She’ll be looking to both attack and contain Selma Bacha in the quarterfinals while likely dealing with Dzsenifer Marozsan as well. 

Up top, Marie-Antoinette Katoto, Sandy Baltimore and the recently-acquired Ramona Bachman, who also scored against Sparta Prague, will form PSG’s probable trident. That means Canadian forward Jordyn Huitema will come off the bench in the second half, especially if her side is in need of some extra offence.

She’ll be going up against none other than Kadeisha Buchanan, this country’s reigning player of the year and a four-time Champions League winner.

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Buchanan, 25, is the more defensive of Lyon’s centre-backs, what with captain Wendie Renard preferring a rather more roaming role, but with three goals of her own this term she also happens to be having one of the best campaigns of her career.

A serial winner, Buchanan will be expecting to extend her history-making run of success in the Champions League, and there is a fifth straight French title to pursue as well. A fourth Coupe de France would complete a mind-boggling fourth treble.

In any event, at least one Canadian will come out of this national derby, ensuring at least one Canadian participates in the semifinals of the Champions League. But chances are there will be more — as many as five. 

The women’s club game is strongest in Europe, and the more Canadians involved the better it is for the national team. The upcoming quarterfinals for these players can only bode well for the Olympic Games in Japan this summer.

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