It seemed as though, for the umpteenth time, captain Christine Sinclair would rescue her Canadian side.
Sincy's 137th international goal was an injury-time equalizer on Tuesday that, had that result stood, would have pushed Big Red to penalty kicks with Brazil to determine the winner of the Matchworld Women's Cup (a four-team pre-Olympic tournament in Switzerland).
But that warming, familiar feeling lasted only a few moments, as the Brazilians snapped back almost immediately with the winner at the death, leaving Canada with a sour taste -- and some questions to answer -- after their final pre-Olympic tune-up match.
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The most troubling question -- as posed by Steven Sandor -- is, if Canada's Olympic opponents can shut down Sinclair, where will the team's goals come from? Sinclair is the club's current and all-time leading goal scorer by such a preposterous margin that it's not even worth quantifying, and you can assume that the #1 priority of any of Canada's opponents is to formulate a plan to shut her down.
Canada has played four friendlies in the last two and a half weeks, in the final leg of their Olympic preparation. The team has five goals in that time, three of which came from Sinclair. One of the other goal scorers, Melissa Tancredi, is the natural choice to pick up the slack from Sinclair (and scored a cracker against the U.S. last month), but beyond her, the attacking options are thin -- especially considering Chelsea Buckland's injury, and Jonelle Filigno's ongoing recovery from an injury of her own.
Another question is in goal. While head coach John Herdman clearly favours Karina LeBlanc, the fact that teammates took goal kicks for her against Brazil suggests that perhaps the ankle injury she picked up during pre-Olympic camp might not be fully healed. Thankfully, Erin McLeod is more than capable of stepping in at a moment's notice, but with only two goalkeepers in camp, any hint of an injury to one of them is worrisome.
But let's not take a complete doom and gloom approach. While last year's Women's World Cup has surely taught Canadian fans a lesson about tempering their expectations, the reality is that for whatever issues the team may have, Herdman's staff has put a tremendous amount of work into preparing the team for London 2012 -- and yes, Sinclair remains one of the greatest women's footballers to ever play the game. And whatever flaws there may be in the FIFA ranking system, Canada remains positioned at #7 in the world.
So after Tuesday's result, the outlook remains much the same as it's been since Canada's Olympic opponents were named. The group-stage opener, against reigning World Cup champs Japan, will be a very difficult one. A win is the expectation against a largely-unknown South African squad. And the make-or-break showdown will see Canada go up against a team they've matched up well with over the past several years, Sweden. That one, ultimately, could go either way.
No one should be under any delusions that this team will march unimpeded to an Olympic medal. In fact, making it to the semi-finals would, all things considered, be an unexpected and uplifting accomplishment.
But given everything that this roster of young women has been through over the past two years, it's safe to say they've got all the motivation they need to perform for each other. Whatever questions may encircle a team, whatever deficiencies a squad may possess, sometimes -- just sometimes -- nebulous concepts like "heart" and "determination" can win the day. We see stories like that all the time at the Olympics.
And maybe -- just maybe -- we'll be seeing Big Red write a similar one in a few weeks' time.
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