By Rose Rago
“Win or lose against Ghana, it wasn't going to change our approach for the game against Finland.”
Canadian Head Coach Andrew Olivieri insisted their strategy won’t be altered in the next match despite a 1-0 loss to Ghana to open the Fifa Women’s U20 World Cup. The coach was eager to move forward after his squad struggled to keep pace with their Ghanaian counter parts in the first half. Despite the many opportunities they had in the last 30 minutes, Canada couldn't connect. That inability to finish became what would haunt them in the end.
The majority of the post-game analysis sounded similar. Experts cited the Canadians’ failure to score, a slow and nonthreatening start to the match, and curious line up decisions as the causes for the loss.
Coach Olivieri, however, thought differently. “Ghana playing man-marking on all or most of the pitch is difficult for a lot of players to play against, to adapt to,” he said. “You don’t see that much in the modern game anymore. Everything happens just a little bit quicker, is a little bit tighter, and especially the North American players – Canada and the US – will always have more difficulty against that and adjusting to it.”
Prior to the tournament the former Montreal Impact goalkeeper seemed quite aware of and prepared for what his team would face. “I’m expecting the absolute best from them. Ghana won a bronze medal at the 2012 U-17s and that’s the bulk of this team. They also have a large number of returning players from the previous U-20 Women’s World Cup. They are going to be very, very tough.”
There seem to be a few mixed messages surrounding what these young women need to do in order to be successful during the remainder of the group stage.
“We have to learn to adapt to the other team's style of play. It took us the half of the game [Tuesday] to learn that, and by then it was too late.”
Then coach also stated that sticking to their game plan was what made them successful as the match progressed, “I think they lived the strategy a lot more in the second half than the first.”
Are they to adjust their style in order to counter-act their opponents or should they stick with their strategies until the end?”
Perhaps the loss was a result of the pressure they faced. Not exactly, according to Olivieri…sort of. “Playing a World Cup at home, it’s not too much pressure for my players, but it’s a new pressure. And they’ll have to learn to live with it in this tournament, and to win the important games despite this pressure.”
Maybe this is the coach's attempt to take the heat away from his players so they can focus on their next task. But despite the plethora of reasons Olivieri listed, goalkeeper Katie Sheridan was not going to make excuses for what caused the breakdown that lead to Canada’s loss.
“It’s always going to be someone’s fault: I should have stopped the ball, I should have made sure the forward was marked, I should have done this, I should have done that,” she said. “You can find all manner of things that I should have done better, but in the end, it’s a collective mistake.”
The fans hope the Canadian side can determine what went wrong in time for their match against Finland Friday evening.