It's a bit unfortunate that captain Christine Sinclair's momentous 200th appearance for the women's national team came in a four-nations tournament on another continent, in a game that was moved 26 hours later by organizers for no discernible reason and unavailable on Canadian television.
Had the CSA been willing to do some utterly harmless number-fudging (something they were encouraged to do by numerous followers of the team, myself included), the Burnaby native could have been rightly feted last month in a friendly against Mexico at Vancouver's B.C. Place.
But whether Thursday's opener at the Torneio Internacional Cidade de Sao Paulo in Brazil was Sinclair's 200th cap or her 201st, she went ahead and did what she's done for the women's program for nearly a decade and a half: Get down to work, and put the ball in the back of the net.
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Sinclair's tally against the Scots gives her a career total of 147, now 11 shy of Mia Hamm for second on the all-time goal-scoring lead in senior international play. And the accolades are sure to keep on coming -- on Friday, Sinclair was named the "fan favourite of the year" in espnW's Impact10 contest (thanks to some rambunctious stuffing of the ballot box by CanWNT fans) and <strike>is a pretty good bet, later today, to be</strike> has been named the CSA's female player of the year for the 10th consecutive time.
It will be interesting to see (or not see, depending on the availability of web streams) how Sinclair holds up in the rest of the tournament, with only one other striker -- Adriana Leon, who scored her third senior goal for Canada against Scotland -- on the roster.
While Canada could be forgiven for not expecting too stern of a test in Sunday's match against Chile -- who are unranked by FIFA after going more than 18 months without playing a game -- the Chileans did hold the host Brazilians to a 2-0 score line on Thursday, and anyone underestimating a South American team on South American soil is doing so at their own peril.
Still, head coach John Herdman is likely to do more experimenting with his lineup against Chile than he did against Scotland, against whom he fielded a veteran-heavy starting XI. Fans shouldn't be surprised to see some combination of teenagers Kadeisha Buchanan (18), Sura Yekka (16) and Jessie Fleming (15) in the squad -- in fact, prior to the tournament, Herdman guaranteed that Fleming would make her first senior-team appearance at some point, and identified the Chile game as the time it was most likely to happen.
If all goes according to plan, Herdman will get to test some youngsters and still earn three points against Chile, setting up an exciting final group-stage match between Canada and Brazil. Presuming Brazil also gets the job done against Scotland, Big Red will also meet the hosts in the tournament final on Dec. 22, which would be a replica of what happened the last time Canada took part in this tournament, back in 2010.
On that occasion, Canada took the crown thanks to a late goal by, who else, the captain, our captain...
There's plenty of reason for hope in that next generation, but Canada may never again have a player quite like Christine Sinclair. So let's continue appreciating her while we've got her.
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