Canada crashes out of World Cup

Australia drubbing culmination women’s national team’s troubles on and off the pitch

Kickabout
By: Jerrad Peters Posted: 8:36 AM CDT Monday, Jul. 31, 2023 Last Modified: 5:27 PM CDT Monday, Jul. 31, 2023 | Updates

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It could not have gone worse.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 31/07/2023 (816 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It could not have gone worse.

From the attack, which was expected to struggle and did, to the defence, which had typically been so reliable but wasn’t, to the goalkeeping, heroic in Tokyo but a liability in Melbourne, the Canadian women’s soccer team was let down in every phase of the game at the 2023 World Cup.

There is no silver lining. No positives to somehow take away from a deserved group stage exit. No blue-chip prospects, for instance, who might at least have provided a glimmer of hope, however faint, of brighter days ahead for the demoralized Olympic champions.

Scott Barbour / THE CANADIAN PRESS
Canada keeper Kailen Sheridan and defender Ashley Lawrence console each other Monday after losing to Australia at the Women’s World Cup in Melbourne, Australia. — Scott Barbour / THE CANADIAN PRESS

Canada keeper Kailen Sheridan and defender Ashley Lawrence console each other Monday after losing to Australia at the Women’s World Cup in Melbourne, Australia.

In the short term, Canada’s defence of its Olympic gold medal begins in earnest in late September when they’re scheduled to face Jamaica in a two-legged qualification playoff for the Paris Games. That would be the same Jamaica side that held France to a draw in Sydney and is currently second in Group F.

Canada’s 4-0 defeat Monday to Australia at Melbourne Rectangular Stadium will almost certainly be the squad’s final match before departing for the Caribbean. They’ll be bringing only two wins this calendar year, two goals from their previous five matches. Barely enough for a carry-on. Yet somehow a lot of baggage.

It unfortunately requires mentioning — again — that Canada played exactly zero pre-tournament friendlies (and no, the unofficial training scrimmage with England does not count) and arrived Down Under without a compensation agreement in place.

They reached a tentative deal with Canada Soccer during the competition — quite the distraction — and in a refreshing bit of commentary the excellent TSN analyst Amy Walsh underlined just how discouraging it would have been to mount a competitive World Cup campaign in the absence of meaningful support from their employer.

The players, however, are not without a sizeable share of the blame for Monday’s embarrassing result.

Conceding inside the opening 10 minutes for a second consecutive match, they put themselves at a disadvantage from the get-go through a combined lack of concentration and uncharacteristic defensive frailty. Even more disturbing, however, was their complete inability to respond.

Where against Ireland they lucked out with an own-goal to equalize at the end of the first half, they received no such gifts from Australia, which consolidated its lead in the 38th minute — incoming Real Madrid attacker Hayley Raso scoring both.

Again, no response. To be honest, it could easily have been 4-0 at the break.

Where half-time substitutions made the difference against the Irish, they provided no such spark against The Matildas. In retrospect, all they managed was to quietly end Christine Sinclair’s World Cup career while introducing a future that has yet to prove it can live up to her legacy.

That’s the most discouraging part, really.

In the absence of a national women’s league, development of Canadian players simply won’t keep up with that of opponents with whom they used to contend. Nevermind the runaway soccer superpowers such as Spain, Germany, England and France, not to mention the United States; Canada now risks falling behind Portugal, Italy, Colombia and yes, Australia.

A sizeable player pool and options abroad means the program will still develop, perhaps even improve, but not at the rate of its peers.

That’s in the longer term. Though not actually all that long, merely longer than the seven weeks from now when Canada faces Jamaica.

What will the team look like then? Surely not like this. Can meaningful adjustments be made in time to at least attempt to mount a competitive gold-medal defence?

Those are questions for the coming weeks.

Clouding everything, however, is a rather more existential query: Was the Australia drubbing merely a match where everything that could possibly have gone wrong did? Or, a sign of things to come?

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World Cup Notebook

That’s more like it. After failing to score against New Zealand and Switzerland, Norway’s offense finally detonated in a six-goal explosion against the Philippines that rocketed the 1995 World Cup winners into the round of 16. AS Roma striker Sophie Haug tallied a hat trick in Auckland and has now scored eight times in only 10 matches for The Grasshoppers. Fellow forward Caroline Graham Hansen, fresh off a league and Champions League double at Barcelona, also found the back of the net, and if the Norwegian attack can pick up Saturday where it left off Sunday, their knock-out clash with free-scoring Japan could be one of the best games of the tournament.

Even the best feel-good stories rarely star a character as inspirational as Linda Caicedo. Diagnosed with ovarian cancer at 15, she underwent surgery to have the tumour removed and only two years later after lengthy chemotherapy treatment, she won Best Player honours at the Copa America Femenina where her Colombia side finished runners-up. On Sunday, barely 48 hours after collapsing to the pitch during training (“stress and physical demands,” according to her team), her exquisite, curling shot to the far top corner opened the scoring against Germany in what became a stunning 2-1 victory for the South Americans.

That Switzerland were able to top Group A with just a single win and two goals demonstrated, as if we needed any more proof, the extremely narrow margins at this World Cup. While defence wins champions — so the cliche goes — the Swiss rearguard of Noelle Maritz and Julia Stierli, with captain Lia Walti shielding them, will likely have to be especially airtight in the round of 16 against Spain, which will be looking to rebound from Monday’s loss to Japan.

Speaking of Spain, a team that looked invincible through two matches were comprehensively dismantled Monday by a Japan outfit that, clearly, were underestimated ahead of this competition. They will not be taken lightly anymore. In a masterful piece of coaching, Nadeshiko manager Futoshi Ikeda had La Roja unsteady from the off, what with a formational switch from a back three to a flat defensive line of five. Right-sided midfielder Hinata Miyazawa, who doesn’t find the back of the net all that often for her club side, delivered one of the performances of the World Cup to date with a pair of goals and an assist.